For a Mother-To-Be
Nothing could have prepared
Your heart to open like this.
From beyond the skies and the stars
This echo arrived inside of you
And started to pulse with life
Each beat a tiny act of growth,
Traversing all our ancient shapes,
On its way home to itself.
Once it began, you were no longer your own.
A new, more courageous you, offering itself
In a new way to a presence you can sense
But you have not seen or known.
It has made you feel alone
In a way you never knew before;
Everyone else sees only from the outside
What you feel and feed
With every fiber of your being.
Never have you traveled farther inward
Where words and thoughts become half-light
unable to reach the fund of brightness
Strengthening inside the night of your womb.
Like some primeval moon,
Your soul brightens
The tides of essence
That flow to your child.
You know your life has changed forever,
For in all the days and years to come,
Distance will never be able to cut you off
From the one you now carry
For nine months under your heart.
May you be blessed with quiet confidence
That destiny will guide you and mind you.
May the emerging spirit of your child
Imbibe encouragement and joy
From the continuous music of your heart,
So that it can grow with ease,
Expectant of wonder and welcome
When its form is fully filled
And it makes it journey out
To see you and settle at last
Relieved and glad in your arms.
- John O'Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings, Doubleday, 2008.
Robin Citrin, connected to me by those complicated connections we call family ties, but much simpler by the bonds of friendship and common idealism, shared a lovely poem by O'Donohue a few weeks ago that was so fitting for this time in history, that I just had to find O'Donohue on my shelf and share one of his blessings on a special day.
Robin has a son that is just as far away from her as my eldest son is from me (in Korea). Of course there are no distance limits on the extent of a mother's love. Here's the poem she shared with me. Happy Mother's Day to all of you who give out "mother love".
this is the time to be slow,
lie low to the wall
until the bitter weather passes.
try, as best you can, not to let
the wire brush of doubt
scrape from your heart
all sense of yourself
and your hesitant light.
if you remain generous,
time will come good;
and you will find your feet
again on fresh pastures of promise,
where the air will be kind
and blushed with beginning.
john o’donohue ~
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