by Joan Baranow
The author describes her spiritual orientation as follows: "I am a Quaker. For me, spirituality is a loving and compassionate attitude towards life. To cherish the flesh is to know God."
To learn more about the Quaker faith, see Rachel MacNair's article "A Lively Concern: the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers)" in this issue.
"Dream" originally appeared in Harmony. "Conception" originally appeared in Sisterlife.
1. Dream
2. Conception
3. Six Weeks
4. Aborted
5. Nine Months
6. Birth
1. Dream
We were once as fragile
as paper lanterns
twirling slowly
in a closed cradle--
and our only skill
was not to know
of our existence.
Born out of substance
into metaphor,
we carry the absence of light.
Why else would the memory
of paradise elude us,
like the bright green snakes
that slide into shadows?
These words will not reclaim
the time
when every hunger
had its nipple.
There was once a heaven
without mother or father,
without sibling,
without self.
2. Conception
Rolling through water,
crushed gently
by the blue tunnel--
father, mother
the splintered egg
softens, swells
each cell acquiring
the nub of purpose,
each breath
a bubble of flesh.
Long before
the first bones ripen,
before the leap
of synapse
when the brain
admits itself,
this flower
climbed out of the dark
for no reason
but to blossom.
3. Six Weeks
Deep in the thick
red blue
cranberry bog
the fetus
knows
a juicy existence.
Every pore
is open,
sipping a delicious wine.
*
Discoveries twirl
into mysteries--
walls that caress,
sudden pink petals
in the lake,
tides
of laughter,
pounding
from the clouds, then
a strange discipline:
that firm tug
at the navel.
*
Whatever wish
travels through the cortex
is answered
by physical joy.
But the fetus
wants more than this,
the fetus wants
separateness.
4. Aborted
You can feel in your soft bones
breaking
a nuclear whirlwind
of which you could tell us--
but you are
blessed
to exist without
voice--
only an open mouth
filled with salt,
your tongue
a fish
angling up
for air,
for sweetness.
The elastic walls
of your room
stretch
around the instrument
that swims
through your thigh.
You reach for the hook
with your first shock
of conscious thought.
5. Nine Months
Before the storm,
before the purple clouds
split open, spilling
juice onto the earth,
the sky is heavy
and urgent,
trees hold their leaves
still, animals dig
deeper burrows,
and birds dart
between branches
into their nests.
In that one moment
we call imminence,
when the wind
warns the world
to take cover
a miracle:
a pair of butterflies
pummel the air
lightly, as if
death could not brush
even the dust
from their wings.
6. Birth
I move with Love in my womb
It is not a paradox
It lives and breathes
I can feel its great heart
Beating on my own
Sometimes Love's head
Leans on my forehead
In the air
Between brain and bone
I know it
sits in dark and sees
Light in my hair
I can feel
Its small hands in mine
Even my lips
Can feel the moist
Sound of Love's speech
A dream?
It is no paradox
It lives and breathes
Beneath the fluid hood
Hearing the sun in these woods
On a deep autumn day
Earth gives birth
Opening
The swollen grain
I emerge
Dark and bleeding
Fruit
Of a seedling
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