Birth-Tears

I love this poem by Mattie J.T. Stepanek, 1990-2004.

Birth-Tears

When I was a little
Teen-tiny baby
And I came out of
My mommy's womb,
I cried.
That's what most babies
Do when they are born.
Do you know why
I cried when I was born?
I cried for the same
Reason that most babies
Cry when they are born.
I cried because I was so happy.
I cried because I got to come
And live in this family.
I cried because God was
So good to let me have
The best mommy in the world.
And that is why most
Babies cry when they are born...
They are happy birth-tears
Because we are so happy
To be in the best families.

June 1996 (he was 6 years old).

Being Born is Important

By Carl Sandburg

Being born is important
You who have stood at the bedposts
and seen a mother on her high harvest day,
the day of the most golden of harvest moons for her.

You who have seen the new wet child
dried behind the ears,
swaddled in soft fresh garments,
pursing its lips and sending a groping mouth
toward nipples where white milk is ready.

You who have seen this love's payday
of wild toiling and sweet agonizing.

You know being born is important.
You know that nothing else was ever so important to you.
You understand that the payday of love is so old,
So involved, so traced with circles of the moon,
So cunning with the secrets of the salts of the blood.
It must be older than the moon, older than salt.


**I saw this poem on a midwife's homepage, then googled it and found it on several other birth blogs. That led me to finding this beautiful artwork on birth.

First Daughter

I read this poem today in a book called Mothers and Daughters, a Poetry Celebration.

First Daughter

This is a bond more tightly sealed,
this sharing the task of childbirth
with an infant who may someday know the same.

--Maureen Tolman Flannery