There is a moment of truth
in a word spoken
There is a moment of awakening
in the angry encounter
There is an abrupt stop
to the long for illusion
There is no end to the pain
-like an open vain
it pulsates and bleeds out
as a fountain of terror
The pain of losing a child is just too deep to dry out,
the pain of the child which I couldn’t have known,
so pointless but infinitely real
Perhaps the child lives now in someone else’s womb,
another mother now cherishes its presence
Mother, how lucky this woman is,
she knows nothing of loss and emptiness,
yet she will know the pain of birth
which I will not.
I will not bring this child into this world
I will not bring this child up
I will not know this child
the child will not know me
…all the lost children
like dried droplets of dew,
the sun has dried them before I had a chance to witness their beauty
My heart is bleeding to the raw core,
there is no end to my sorrow,
beyond sadness really,
eternal grief, ever present
for children which didn’t know
their mother or this world,
-perhaps they didn’t exist at all,
I made them up,
perhaps they were not here at all…
How does it differ from losing
a living child, a husband, a mother?
What right have I got
to monopolise this pain?
But this ‘grief being’ is not like any other,
similar perhaps, but distinctly my own.
I don’t want others to steal my grief,
to rob me of the last precious memory of the child.
Sunny is outside but I choose to remain in the deep centre of pain
for when I’m in pain I am closer to this child.
I am true to my motherhood.
Pain is good, pain is painful but pain is good,
pain keeps my child alive.
(written 20/1/ 2018 – I would be 8 months pregnant)
What lives in the earth, deep under the tree’s roots? What lives deep in my heart?
Deep down under the roots, there live human beings in the shape of water spirits. That’s where my children live, beneath the water surface. They are so much more than human bodies, they are free to play and laugh.
Once in a long time they are allowed to travel above the surface. There they seek their mother. Their hearts join with their mother’s and together they burn the sadness of bitter years passed. A flaming tree of their flaming hearts enables the new growth and the wind is blowing towards the future. Water and fire join in a flaming tree of love, like a torch, the torch of love. Where there is love there is forgiveness.
(written 2/1/2018)
I write to make sense of things. In art and writing I discover that there is something stronger in me that survives it all, something that wants to live and will keep me going. It tells me: ‘Don’t give up so easily, this is not the end, not near the end, it’s just the opposite – the new beginning after something has died.’
