Birth Pains

author’s note:

Another poem posted earlier and lately revised.

I didn’t write this poem to anyone in particular, but to the few people I’ve ever been close to.


BIRTH PAINS

The strangest miracle
occurred when we met. 
Something was born:
with a clubbed foot, a baby
monster that could walk
for miles and climb
mountains--

beautiful, terrible
turquoise mountains.

How can
a difficult birth
be better than
a mild delivery?--

wrestling against
poorly-starred odds
brings out strength.

There’s an ornery refusal
in that resolute life
to listen to reason--

when put
in the smallest possible box
and buried far far underground
that life will bleed
upward through
fissured black rock

to break the surface
sharper than garnet.

This birth keeps on
being born.

This birth has torn
our stomachs apart.
Has blasted us
time and again
into tears.
This birth has crucified us.  But
despite its sanctity,
we still have trouble
accepting the “why”.

Why?  Because you
had to and I had to--
we had to;
because without this child
the mountain would be
so much less.

© 2008, Michael R. Patton

shameless self-promotion