Jubilation
Written for International Women’s Day

 Let me this day celebrate

he ways of womanhood
The palm tree curve of bodies
Made to endure
Gale forces
Rooted firm
In the place
Of their upspringing
Upright, proud
Yet pliant enough
To withstand
Tsunamis
 
Let me celebrate
The life blood womb nest
That grows persons
But more
The life blood heart nest
That nurtures persons
From within
And without
 
Let me celebrate
Her of the sweet kisses
And her of the tattered book
Of the running shoe
And the open score
The eye cast up to heaven
Or a down a microscope
Her of the knitting needle
The back pack and canoe
 
Let me celebrate
The dancing eye
Arcing lip
Swaying hip
Swinging breast
Broad-footed
Square-handed
Joy of womanhood
 
Let me celebrate
This day at least
Before we return to battle

Confinement

My belly precedes me
An immense Chambered Nautilus
Firm, full, ripe, rotund
Chambers it has
And passageways
Stomach, colon, liver, kidney
Pancreas, intestine, ovary, womb
Chambers within chambers
Uterus, chorion, amnion
Cradling nascent life
 
My mind spirals inward
Following the convolution
Of artery
The flow of blood
From heart to placenta
Placenta to cord
Cord to heart
Down and around
To the resident hidden
Within my recesses
Seeking connections beyond blood
 
Does the chambered shell
Of the nautilus
Feel the silence of its occupant
Does it long for an open glance
A lifting smile
A lingering caress
Is it impatient to know love
And to show it
Or is it, in the absence of birth
Indifferent to the lack of connection
Unconcerned with isolation
 
O appalling paradox
Today, nurtured by the same breath
The same blood|
We are one
Cojoined
Yet we are isolate
Unseeing, unhearing
Unknowing and unknown
Tomorrow, birth will sunder us
Separated, we become intimate
Eye gazing into eye
Finger curling round finger
Lip to nipple
Love feeding love
Love growing love
Growing on love
Growing from love
I cannot wait to expel you
From this bulbous belly shell
Into my waiting arms
So that, finally, finally
I might know you. 

Before Fajr* 

Only the wind and I are awake
The moon has slept
And the trees

My child sleeps
My husband sleeps
I hear their breaths mingled
Melting into the breath of the wind

Under the gauzy veils
Of the wind's whispers
My child's sighs
My husband’s susurrations
Silence sinks through my chest
and reaches into my soul

Oh Allah, in this silence
I can almost hear You breathe

*Fajr is the time when the first light of dawn creeps over the horizon

© Copyright , Pamela Taylor.
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