Waiting




Little child, this morning you woke me when the sky was still black, milky with low clouds and fog, and in the darkness I laid my hands over the places where you like to move. 

I thought: soon, the sun. I thought: a new day. I thought: you are already so alive that it frightens and thrills me, you who I know but do not know, you who I feel but cannot see. 

I have watched the seasons change all my life. I have anticipated the tightening, the clean coat of snow, the turning over. I have waited for signs, and they have come, every time, in the form of something I have words for. 

But you, child, are hidden: I close my eyes and sense you behind a tree trunk, between a row of pumpkins, below the surface of a summer lake. 

Your face is the peaks and valleys and plains of the earth, given new sounds, new names, that I've not yet learned how to say.

Comments

  1. So beautiful and moving! I wish you all the best during your pregnancy! What a wonderful and wondrous time it must be...

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  2. Such a wonderful post! Such exciting times. All the best :)

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  3. Beautifully written. I love the patterns and colours on the corn.

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    1. Thank you, MFV, POW, and POS. Wonderful? Wondrous? Exciting? Yes, yes, and yes. Something new every day.

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  4. What a beautiful poem. And what a beautiful expression of the deep, powerful love a mother has for her unborn child.
    (I hope it's OK that I call it a poem. It feels like poetry to me.)

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    1. You can call it whatever you'd like, Leonora. I wrote it in the haze of early morning with my eyes mostly closed, so I suppose that also makes it a fragment of some receding dream. I'm just glad you liked it. :)

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  5. I was talking just to day, with the young woman who cut my hair, about her 8-month-old and the depth of love a mother feels for a child. She told me how much she loves being a mom. And I told her how much I love being a mom. And now I read, in this poem, all the reasons why motherhood is so precious and wonderful and love beyond measure.

    Simply beautiful words matches by equally beautiful images, Emily. You are already a wonderful mom, gifting your child with these thoughts.

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    1. Thank you, Audrey. So kind of you to say. It's strange for me--being a not-quite-but-already-yes mother. There are so many things I can only feel, you know? So much is just beyond the horizon.

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  6. Emily:

    I just knew you would create meaningful, sensitive words to present your feelings during pregnancy. You have absolutely captured the essence. It must be miraculous and marvelous to be in your place; a Mother to be.

    Sincerely,

    Richard

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    1. Thank you, Richard. Miraculous and marvelous, indeed.

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  7. Waiting for the beginning of life, and waiting for its end - the poets have words for both. Your words are perfect, made for your time, but I suspect you recognize the wisdom of this other poet's words.

    I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope
    For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love,
    For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith
    But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.
    Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:
    So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.

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    1. Lovely, Linda. Thank you. I'm going to keep these words close to me today.

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  9. Oh so lovely. Welcome to the early mornings!

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    1. Thank you, Jessica and Robin. And R, I think the early morning is my favorite time of day. :)

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  10. Thanks always nice to hear.
    Autumn is the season in Japan.
    Your poem is very nice.
    I also love poetry.
    The Japanese I love the poet Shiki Masaoka.
    I also like the leaves of Remy de Gourmont French.
    Japan is a very beautiful foliage is lighted up.
    From Japan.
    Ryoma Sakamoto.




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    1. Hi Ryoma. Thanks for passing along Masaoka's name. I will have to look this poet up! I enjoy Remy, too. Thanks for painting a lovely portrait for me of Japan in autumn!

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  11. Very moving. Love before first sight! I've always loved the expression "she's with child", yes, you are already with your child. You are about the enter one of the great periods of life. Wonderful, mysterious, and scary all in a simultaneous emotion bound with a single string.

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    1. Bill, your explication of that phrase rings incredibly clearer in this moment than it has at any other time in my life. Thank you for that. Makes me smile.

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  12. beautiful, both your words and photos.

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  13. Happy tears this morning, Emily. What a lovely post.

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  14. "Your face is the peaks and valleys and plains of the earth..." I love how your child is already being raised a child of the earth, such a wonderful, powerful thing.

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    1. I picture the tree trunks and the pumpkin patches because one of the things I am looking forward to most is introducing this babe to the natural world. There is so much to share!

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  15. i too am a sign-seeker...especially with the seasons. funny how i can't seem to kick this proclivity of mine. beautifully written.

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    1. Why kick it? Perhaps we look for signs because they really are there. Thanks for reading along, Ann Marie!

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  16. Perfect words that express how it feels in the later months of pregnancy.

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    1. Mary and GTB: so glad these few words spoke to you. I'm happy to share them.

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  17. How absolutely lovely and profound, Emily. Good luck in this special journey.

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  18. This is so beautifully written. Thank you for sharing such personal thoughts.

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  19. Congratulations on your pregnancy- wonderfully captured.

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    1. Thank you, Peter. We're excited. Sometimes I can find a few words that speak to that.

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  20. Too, too beautiful - I love these words.

    xo
    cortnie

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  21. These are beautiful!!! I love fall and fall images.

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