A Blue That’s Almost Blue

Here's a poem I wrote four or five years ago. In it I imagine that I have a baby.

A Blue That’s Almost Blue
To a Child, Unborn

A calm moon lends

a hush within the room
the night outside

fills its envelope with dread
a claw of hope

scratches its name across clay
I don't know what to feel

because I’m rising into
deep blue music

a ceremony of inner weather

I marvel over

an imagined, sleeping infant
who dreams of islands

I've never visited
never will

He and I are two
bodies trembling and

separate now and always I
hold my breath,

a hostage of the sky.

The way I put the poem down on the page, there's a space in the middle of each line so the phrases appear to be floating. My lack of HTML expertise has kept me from rendering that effect in this journal entry. The poem was a pantoum, originally. I started it while visiting a creative writing class led by my friend Jane Creighton. It was a stormy summer day in Houston. We were thinking together about atmosphere.

I had always imagined the baby as a boy. When we started the process of having children, I wanted to be the birth mother. That's what I was thinking of when I was writing this poem, but the details turned out differently. I got pregnant twice but had miscarriages both times. When Marcia decided to take a turn, it worked out on the first try.

Now we are parents. The sleeping infant is real, and she is ours. What she dreams about--I would love to know.

Comments

[Joanne]

I am sure her dreams go somewhat like - wow here I am not sure how or why but I do so feel loved. So incredibly loved and embraced to be all that I can be. Robin your gift to Marcia and Pearl is endless and I am so grateful. You are amazing and I love the sharing. Thank you it means so much. It is truly a gift.