Author: poetryfest

After “Song for a Fifth Child (Babies Don’t Keep) by Ruth Hulburt Hamilton

Mother, oh mother, put down your burp cloth.
Donate the diapers, shut off the wash,
Pack all the hats for tiniest of heads,
Sew up your heart and collapse baby’s bed.
Where is the one whose absence is so shocking?
We’re all still here waiting with empty arms, rocking.

She’s gone without even a “Good night, Gorilla”
(Hush, little darling, now don’t say a word).
She left only a small, empty pillow
(Daddy’s gonna hold you, sweet little bird).
Your home’s a better one and there’s nothing to do
But leave room in our hearts where we thought you grew,
Where we’re praying, loving, most missing you.
(Our little Mercy, we’ll hold this as true:
Our Father in Heaven is holding you.)

Goodbye, the life we hoped you’d still have tomorrow.
Some kids don’t grow up, as we’ve learned to our sorrow.
Farewell, little future. Dreams, go to sleep.
We’re mourning our baby, one we can’t keep.

Runs through the veins of almost all.
A curdling poison of sorts,
Spewing, rolling, tumbling,
Off lips and stirring in hearts.
Hatred words causing pain and grief to all.
Like drugs,
Making innocent sweetness,
Die in the hands of those hatred demons.
Toxicity ruins lives,
Relationships,
And poisons the innocent’s angelic eyes.
Turning in the membrane,
Toxicity burning fuel
In their hearts of the keeper.
Until their curdling dark blood
Falls.

Letting go,
As if it’s just release.
You’ll have to
Peel it off my skin
Scrape out
my insides.
I mean
it’s probably cellular,
By now,
epigenetic.

Numbers I didn’t understand
Mercurial memory
The nested fear springing up
Unexpectedly

I resent my own familiarity
With hospital bureaucracy
The voice to take
With a nurse or doctor
technician or administrator.

And the window I finally cracked open
Slammed shut
And there i am
ill-made
To make it through
What they call simple
Natural
Simple
“A natural birth”
Not ravaging
Brutal
A wrecking chaos
Instead they call you ill-made
They risk stratify
They look at you sadly
“Poor guy” they say
To the sound-image

I cannot imagine how different your father would be,
Or if he would have met me,
or if you would have had addiction difficulties.
Or truly how God decides to make the call for miscarriages

I’m not mother material,
But I like to think I would’ve been,
If I could’ve met you
I never met your mother, but she didn’t meet your dad
Not the way I had, this man

I never had the privilege of meeting you
And I suppose It’s not my right to
When your dad couldn’t meet his son,
But I love him, and already love you.
And I’m sorry I won’t have the right to.

I wonder then, if your soul will show
In my own son, or hers, or some stranger’s
Or perhaps it exists as the five-year-old It should be,
in a world I’ll never know

So we pray for her, sometimes, and I wonder if that’s weird
Then wonder if she prays too, for your half-brothers, for you
Or if her husband kisses her tummy
Or misses you
The way I don’t have the right to.

I vowed to my father at his open grave
not to trust another
for others will leave me bleeding

I vowed to my father at his open grave
to lock my heart
for others will leave me bleeding

I vowed to my father at his open grave
to voice my truth
for others will leave me bleeding

I vowed to my father at his open grave
to help the voiceless
when others have left them bleeding

*

When Father died and I was seventeen
I knew he left me
abandoned deserted me
his child

Fifty years later I recognized
He didn’t leave me
he died
just like all beings do

I opened up to trust a teacher
started meditating daily
and achieved joy I never knew
delving into wisdom

I opened up to love my husband
giving him my heart knowing
he’ll stay with me
until his time has come

I opened up to see all colors
not just blacks and grays
vibrating with all beings
soaking up the now and now and now

there’s a difference between feeling death and feeling like death.

feeling death requires your lungs failing to inflate,
feeling death must mean your blood terminating
its circulation in your veins and arteries like a carousel.
feeling death is its old, clammy hands on your back
and its rancid breath fanning your cheek.

feeling like death is entirely different.
This is obvious to anyone with a brain.
feeling like death is having blood splattered on your shirt,
a white shirt, in the middle of nowhere,
and having that once clammy hand holding yours like a
parent does a child to cross the street.

feeling like death requires looking down at bodies as they squirm,
and scream, and beg you not to play god.

I can’t forget the little wound of you
I see the magnetic strip of it happening
On repeat in sodium lights of memory
In moments of taxing grief
That murder so minuscule
Haunts my thoughts.

But I saw it happen
In the night
In the rain
In the headlights of my car
And the oncoming truck that—
I watched it die.

I saw the small cat, little more than a kitten
Crossing the street
In the night,
in the rain,
In the lights of the oncoming truck that hit—
It broke me.

I watched it unzip before my eyes
Like some macabre magic trick
Its body opened like a purse
In the rainy night
In the headlights of my car.

It fell five feet in front of me
Fighting, shuddering, clawing at the air
With confusion, pain, desperation
And then

It stopped.

And there was just
The rain
And the night
And the headlights illuminating
The overwhelming silence cast in bronze.

And the night and the rain—
They never stopped.

I miss you, stars.
Do you miss me?

The flowers are dead–
I hear them crying
and I wear their faces
on my dress

Maybe one day
these hands of mine
that hold this pen and ache
will disentomb
the ruined, empty soil
and long for the days
that you were here

What is your name?

I know nothing about you,
my ancestors
who lived and breathed and laughed
like I do
and died long ago
like I will

Who are you?

I miss you.

Do you miss me?

Someday I will be nameless–
a faceless specter at the edge
of someone else’s lineage
and they will wonder
“Who are you?”

and they will miss me

and I will not have known them

I don’t know why they have brought me here?
This place seems similar, but what’s this strange machine
Making active yet grieving sound?
Why my eyes are losing will to stay open?

I still remember I just opened eyes for the first time a while ago,
I was amazed and scared at the same time,
I was crying while those strange people were smiling while looking at me.
Now I don’t see those faces anywhere,
Isn’t it strange that this time I’m somewhat smiling,
And some strange yet these people who are dear to me are crying?

I still remember running carefreely in those wheat fields,
I still remember how my mother used to tie my hair,
I still remember how my eyes first met my husband’s eyes,
I still remember sitting moon with him for the first time,
I still remember holding those little cute hands of my own blood,
I still remember the excitement I had when he took his first step.

I still remember how my hair turned white,
And I put Hina to dye them red.
I still remember the last meeting with my husband,
Those wrinkled old hands holding mine,
The grip might have been weak, but not the warmth,
The warmth of so many years of joy, happiness, and sorrow.

I still remember when those eyes full of love
Chose to shut permanently and take a part of me with them.
I still remember how a part of me stayed empty after that,
I still remember how I used to fill that void with my loneliness.

I still remember the first night sitting moon without him,
But now they say that I’ve lost sane conscious state of mind.
I don’t think so?
I still remember the smell of rain,
When I was scared of it, and my father held my hand,
And we moved slowly in the rain.
There was faith in my steps, with fear in my heart.

This is the same place,
But this time I might have to go—
Go somewhere I don’t know.
But yes, maybe it’s the same place from where I came.
What will I take with me? Nothing.
I came with nothing in my tiny little hands,
And now I’ve to depart with nothing in my old wrinkled hands.
Perhaps when I came, I brought some sort of happiness,
Now I’ve to leave behind some sort of sorrowness—
Just like Euphrates flowed through so many places,
Carrying a mixture of told, untold, bitter, and sweet memories.

Today I awoke with a tightness in my chest
“I missed you my dear” was whispered in jest
Tears start to fall as I thought I had defeated
“Oh silly girl, I was only depleted”
Around my neck I can feel the claws
“Can you feel the comfort of the darkness it falls”
Too tired to fight, the scars not yet healed
“With a pick and a poke, this wound I will peel”
Frozen in fear, mind racing fast
“Did you really think the light would last”
I cringe from the smirk and heat of its breath
“Peace will only come when you give in to death”
The tools from battle are battered and bruised
“Your naivety does make me very amused”
Strength is drained trying to fight once again
“Just give in to me child, look where we have been”
“Here is the bottle to drown out your thoughts”
My stomach is ill and tied into knots
“And here, lets ruminate on your lack of decision”
I know what this is and in my heart is division
“I will embrace you always, stop fighting me so”
It is right and it kills me, this I know
Today I give up, today it has won
No need to worry any further as it is all done

To bed I must go as it’s my only escape
“Oh dear, you’re dreams I will haunt, remember the rape?”
Slight quiet in slumber, a taste of peace
“Another nightmare to ponder, it will not cease”
Alarm starts to blare, another day without drink
“Why are you trying, quit trying to think”
Distractions are needed; idle hands leave me weak
“Push away all you want; my havoc will wreak”
Its embrace so familiar, the darkness consuming
“Yes, my girl, let me in; stop fuming”
People around me cheer to keep fighting
“But you know in your soul, with me is more exciting”
Who do I choose, this question dividing
My head and my heart farther apart they are sliding
“I have been with you forever and always”
“Will they stick around when you’re stuck in my haze”
If they do or they don’t, it really doesn’t matter
“But in your heart, you do want this and that I will shatter”
“It is me you should choose; I am growing annoyed”
With you the darkness ends in only one way
How am I to know an option for another day
“Concede, stop fighting, this is where you belong”
“Proof without drink that you are not strong”
“My dear, in your heart you know I am not wrong”

Why does it always have to be all or nothing
Can we find a balance; some sort of peace offering
“I do not want to share you with the world my dear”
“You are mine forever, let me be clear”
Epiphany setting in, that you will never leave
“Laughing, my child there is only slight reprieve”
When your strength is greater than mine and I cannot fight your call
I must do the small things that will help me not fall
“You can pretend that these things will keep me at bay”
“But you know I am stronger at the end of the day”
Leaning on those that want me around
“With me you can finally wear the crown”
Remember the things that bring me joy
“This my dear is only a ploy”
Focusing on what makes your voice small
“You can try if you must, in the end you will answer my call”
Acknowledge this I may, today is not the day
“Why must you fight me so, this game we shall play”
Out of obligation I will live with you in my life
And even when you create so much strife
“I will always be here waiting for concession”
“I don’t understand why you don’t learn your lesson”
Together we shall live, a part of me you are
“A battle you want, your heart I will scar”