Away in a Manger

Today

It’s raining

And cold

The baby

Isn’t sleeping

She thrashes and whimpers

Resists and  rages

Some of her finer qualities

Until one wants to take a nap

I feel like 

One of my Grandmother’s oil paintings

After she made

A mistake

Rubbed back down

Thinned out

Canvas

Showing through color

Scraped and chastised 

Never really made right

The coffee is good though

I have someone

To make it for me

He’s handsome and kind

Even when I’m cranky

An inestimable luxury

One of my 

Wild daughters

Looks up at me 

Across the table

Through disheveled curls

And says

When I grow up

I want to be a Mommy

I’m going to take such good care of my babies

Just like you Mommy

In my delirium

The difference registers

Like an arrow 

To it’s mark

A thing

I would have never said

My young world

Was only survival

I grew up

In a fantastical hurry

To hide and suppress

My desire to Mother

To have

A future at all

I never even played

With baby dolls

My eldest and I 

Go on to discuss

The many things 

A mommy needs to know

For the greatest job

In the world 

She smiles big

Proudly declares

Mommy

You’ll teach me how to nurse my babies

I don’t know how

To do that yet

It dawns on me

Like a waterfall

All this time

All these crazy harried

Holy years

She has been watching

They have been watching

What I have worried about

Lost even more sleep over

They have not seen

Instead

They want babies

They want to learn to cook and to nurture

To bring solace

To dry tears and plant gardens

They know what breasts

Are biologically for

They want 

In some ways at least

To be like me

This heady revelation

Nearly salts my coffee

With tears

The hard 

Merciless excavations

The rebuilding 

Of a foundation half started

The planting of orchards

I shall never see

The conscious gatekeeping 

The inconvenient boundaries

The times of have stood

Arms raised in their rooms

While the night grew dark

Weaving prayers of protection and providence

It is all 

Sewing itself together 

Slowly and joyously and measuredly

Like a mantle

A coat of all our colors

We are giving them granite

Instead of sand

It’s worth every wrinkle

Every tear of frustration or feeling of failure

It’s worth

Being misunderstood 

By the world around us

Being  in a band

All our own

I told someone once

After they asked me

With the best of intentions

About my plans

To get back to myself

After babies

Motherhood

Is etched on my bones

You can never

Go back from it

Only forward

Only up

Only always

Building

Preparing and planting

What will one day

Sprawl into shade

For their later years

For their tiny toddling hearts

They will be equipped

Whatever their path

To plant life

Into this wretched world

To make springs

In valleys of weeping

To forge gentle paths

On “the family land”

Into every life

They meet or make

To one day rise

When I am dust

And call me blessed