Is Womb the Origin

A new poem for Mother's Day

Happy Mother’s Day to mothers (noun) and to those who mother in many various ways (verb). This world is blessed to have you!

This is the first Mother’s Day I get to celebrate while having a child of my own. I am almost exactly nine months postpartum and feeling very tender, very grateful for the opportunity to hold and care for my sweet baby girl.

Today, I have for you a new poem. <3

Is Womb the Origin

Of life, the home where egg 
is fertilized by sperm?
Or does life begin
before that, when two people
come together as one,
in the act of combining 
parts of themselves to create another?
Maybe it is before, when the two glance
sidelong at each other 
with an image of their rosy-cheeked child 
in their eyes, in the act of imagining 
what that future – 
what they – could hold.
Or is it before even that?

I felt you move.
I felt a stirring that kept me awake
in the quiet dark before I knew 
you were growing inside me.
I imagined you
before you were made.
Was your origin divine 
from some time 
further back in our history,
in some previous crossing?
Because in a way, I feel I always had you.
And you always had me,
and maybe my womb
was just the last
gathering place before at last
you came here to me.