Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Childbirth

Strong, strong . . . by Molly 
(I intend "fair use," but if you think not, tell me and I'll remove the image.)

"Childbirth changed my perception of my wife. She was now 

the bloodied  special forces soldier who had fought 
and risked everything for our family." 

~Mohsin Hamid

“He allowed himself to be swayed by his conviction that human beings are not born once and for all on the day their mothers give birth to them, but that life obliges them over and over again to give birth to themselves.” 
― Gabriel García Márquez

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 Midweek Motif ~ Childbirth 

We all arrived on earth the same way, I believe. If you are a parent, you probably have poems rhapsodizing about it or turning the pain of it into art.  If you are a doctor or nurse or doula or midwife, you might, too. 

But whether or not you have given birth, 

please look at childbirth 

from a perspective that is new to you. 

Your Challenge:  In a new poem, use childbirth as topic, focus, theme, motif or .....

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The Moment the Two Worlds Meet

By Sharon Olds

That’s the moment I always think of – when the 

slick, whole body comes out of me,

when they pull it out, not pull it but steady it

as it pushes forth, not catch it, but steady it

as it pushes forth, not catch it but keep their 

hands under it as it pulses out,

they are the first to touch it,

and it shines, it glistens with the thick liquid on it.

That’s the moment, while it’s sliding, the limbs

compressed close to the body, the arms

bent like a crab’s rosy legs, the

thighs closely packed plums in heavy syrup, the 

legs folded like the white wings of a chicken-

that is the center of life, that moment when the 

juiced bluish sphere of the baby is

sliding between the two worlds,

wet, like sex, it is sex,

it is my life opening back and back

as you’d strip the reed from the bud, not strip it but

watch it thrust so it peels itself and the

flower is there, severely folded, and

then it begins to open and dry

but by then the moment is over,

they wipe off the grease and wrap the child in a blanket and

hand it to you entirely in this world.

Excerpt from  Song of Myself  (1892 version)

Related Poem Content Details

BY WALT WHITMAN

(1) 

I celebrate myself, and sing myself, 

And what I assume you shall assume, 

For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you. 

I loafe and invite my soul, 

I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass. 

My tongue, every atom of my blood, form’d from this soil, this air, 

Born here of parents born here from parents the same, 

and their parents the same, 

I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin, 

Hoping to cease not till death. 

Creeds and schools in abeyance, 

Retiring back a while sufficed at what they are, but never forgotten, 

I harbor for good or bad, I permit to speak at every hazard, 

Nature without check with original energy. 

(Read the rest HERE)

Cost of childbirth by country generated using data in the NYTimes article "American Way of Birth, Costliest in the World", By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL | Published: June 30, 2013

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Please share your new poem using Mr. Linky below and 

visit others in the spirit of the community—

(Next week Susan’s Midweek Motif will be ~ Bicycles, Tricycles or Unicycles)

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