Sacred Mothering

I hover over, I cloak him

in the sacred space as he sleeps.

The troubled cough,

occasional yet meaningful,

bursting through the silence of predawn.

It tells me something I can’t quite grasp---

feelings of pressure and grim faces

that want, expect, disapprove.

The body just wants peace,

wants to lie down in soft glades,

full of grass blades and fragrant flower smells.

Birdsong trills from waving branches of green summer fare.

The blue of sky, the white of translucent cloud,

the massage of breeze as it rolls over the body...

And a spontaneous sigh of release

heads down into the core of the body,

and up from the shaking,

but unbound,

heart.

Why do I not give him this?

He knows everything.

He needs nothing from me but the peace of love,

the peace of acceptance,

of allowing him to be.

The first day that I knew him,

after recognizing him upon birth,

that first day we spent together all he required

was my warm body,

bare skin to skin,

and some nourishing milk from it.

All I required was for him to be alive.

All he had to do was be alive.

It is any less true now?

All the agendas come forward presenting their cases.

“He must… If he doesn’t then... Problems will occur if...”

So many lawyers with good arguments!

All want something reasonable from me.

Yet this truth I feel doesn’t fit to reason...

This sense of being,

of knowing and trusting.

He can take care of it, whatever it is.

The Knower of All backs him on it,

guarantees it.

Back to the cough,

I haven’t heard a thing since this writing.

Tells me I’m on the mark.

Peace... he needs peace.

Allowing... he needs to be allowed to be who he is.

Love... he needs my love.

(Hold the sacred space.

Hold him--

etheric skin to skin--

hold him

in the space of love.)

1999

Qi Gong especially for the energy of this poem: