Labor-pains

When they tell us it’s over

It’s a girl; it’s a boy

We are about to discover

As virgin joy

Washes our faces

Our new daughter or son

That it will never be over

It has just begun

The labor of love

The ebb and flow

Of white-knuckle clinging

And letting go

Is a sacred experience

Simple word cannot grasp

We teach them to fly

While we cradle and clasp

I close my eyes now

As I strain to recall

The curve of your face

When you were so small

And all those thought pictures

I sealed in my heart

Have somehow grown blurry

In love’s ceaseless art

I trace you again; hungrily

Time is a foe

Pulling you from me

But I’ll never let go

For holding is not

A physical grip

I hold you even

As from my arms you slip

The call of life

Is like no other

It tugs love’s off-spring

From the arms of a mother

And this is the way

It surely must be

We cannot remain

On our mother’s knee

Yes, when they tell us it’s over

Childbirth’s groaning and pain

We are about to discover

It never will be again

For this travail of agony

And heart-wrenching bliss

Is a life-long embrace

Of love’s farewell kiss

© Janet Martin