Gestation
You showed the little aquanaut
floating in the hidden pool,
a blurred outline in ultrasound.
At first I thought it was a storm --
a weather map in human form --
that my unpracticed eye could fool.
A set of cells -- a burrower --
takes root, and meets with tears of blood;
a blue-cross on a testing stick
you carried like a rabbit's foot
becomes a talisman you put
away as flesh began to bud.
Cells invent more countless cells
no calculations can surmise.
This body fills an other's garden
where every rose is clothed in white,
as if the moon outstayed the night
and whiteness burned in opened eyes.
Kicking, long before the mother
feels it, and contractions start
before the birth as if rehearsing.
It leaves the amniotic ocean
for airy realms that were a notion
learned through every midwife's art.
We feel the kicking, tumbling child.
Your transfused blood fills up the cord.
The life we live is someone else's,
as flesh is knit within the womb,
a quaking shakes this fluid room
that trembles in the heart-beat's pulses.
To dull the sickness, hardness, madness,
the crib and playroom we adorn
distracted us, as life grew strange.
Babies are relationships,
transformed by kisses, limbs, and lips,
reminding us we all were born.
Approaching Autumn
Autumn like an animal
that longs to leave the open field
and find food in a warm barn
knows the world not at peace
but only surrender
as starlight falls upon the roof
and lasts like a calendar list
of lost souls.
I made these strings of dead lines
for myself
while the fattened roses broke
around the old worm that burrowed
at the tight, layered heart.
All that remains is the name
we used to name it.
You hesitate over these words
that have their roots in you,
undesirable to everyone but me,
untouchable to me but not everyone.
The olive-green color on the hills
retreats over the visible horizon
pulled back into its privacy
just when our words had begun
to describe it.
The stars overhead are pinched shut
and their sight lines filtered in haze.
All we can do is keep going.
The yellow patches enlarge
on the petals of Hibiscus,
and kinds of birds have left,
rising and falling through the night,
working their way South.
You hesitate still over the words
that are buried inside you,
so I have made these dead lines
to speak them for you.
Royal Rhodes is a retired educator who taught courses on global religions, ancient and modern, for almost forty years. He lives now in a small village in Ohio farmland.
You showed the little aquanaut
floating in the hidden pool,
a blurred outline in ultrasound.
At first I thought it was a storm --
a weather map in human form --
that my unpracticed eye could fool.
A set of cells -- a burrower --
takes root, and meets with tears of blood;
a blue-cross on a testing stick
you carried like a rabbit's foot
becomes a talisman you put
away as flesh began to bud.
Cells invent more countless cells
no calculations can surmise.
This body fills an other's garden
where every rose is clothed in white,
as if the moon outstayed the night
and whiteness burned in opened eyes.
Kicking, long before the mother
feels it, and contractions start
before the birth as if rehearsing.
It leaves the amniotic ocean
for airy realms that were a notion
learned through every midwife's art.
We feel the kicking, tumbling child.
Your transfused blood fills up the cord.
The life we live is someone else's,
as flesh is knit within the womb,
a quaking shakes this fluid room
that trembles in the heart-beat's pulses.
To dull the sickness, hardness, madness,
the crib and playroom we adorn
distracted us, as life grew strange.
Babies are relationships,
transformed by kisses, limbs, and lips,
reminding us we all were born.
Approaching Autumn
Autumn like an animal
that longs to leave the open field
and find food in a warm barn
knows the world not at peace
but only surrender
as starlight falls upon the roof
and lasts like a calendar list
of lost souls.
I made these strings of dead lines
for myself
while the fattened roses broke
around the old worm that burrowed
at the tight, layered heart.
All that remains is the name
we used to name it.
You hesitate over these words
that have their roots in you,
undesirable to everyone but me,
untouchable to me but not everyone.
The olive-green color on the hills
retreats over the visible horizon
pulled back into its privacy
just when our words had begun
to describe it.
The stars overhead are pinched shut
and their sight lines filtered in haze.
All we can do is keep going.
The yellow patches enlarge
on the petals of Hibiscus,
and kinds of birds have left,
rising and falling through the night,
working their way South.
You hesitate still over the words
that are buried inside you,
so I have made these dead lines
to speak them for you.
Royal Rhodes is a retired educator who taught courses on global religions, ancient and modern, for almost forty years. He lives now in a small village in Ohio farmland.
