Birth

             1

Nests are not thrown together,

but carefully assembled ,

knit together piece by piece,            

knots on a string of choices             

a snippet at a time, a straw, a twig,            

slips and strips of yarn and threads,                       

feathers, down and seaweed,           

stems of weeds and flower heads-       

industry and patience yoked

together toward common end.

No drawing board, no architect or plan,

no preconception evident ;                          

this hatches from its own intelligence,

its own egg, this idea of nest,

to begin this duet of certainty

to flesh these ideas out.

Predestined partners in this now,   

basketweaving Yin and Yang                          

absolutely bound to coincide.         

In their flights of Maypole spiraling

he selects the territory, she the site.

In their magic how do they know

when nest is done?

When the egg is in it.

Some say god is in the details,

stepping stones to excellence;

others say the devil’s there

to seek or cause the finest flaw                   

and thwart the scheme of things.                

The essence of the universe,

might be the sum of details.

What’s a person or an egg,

but a smaller sum of all of these?

2

So it is beyond these fences

within broader boundaries

enclosing more

that can’t be weighed or measured

in tangibility.

Sweat, for instance,

between two bodies slippery in their heat,

careless in the transience of their lust.                   

She can’t hear the skeins of sound

loosed by their embrace- she’s deaf,

but he is deafer

to things far subtler than sound,     

the silent sire who first begot

and then was not.

3

Vacationing from pain,

as far away as she can get,

self-medicating doctor explores by eye

horizon across the Belfast Bay

from her chair upon the porch,

scans the nearer islands,

enjoys her stereopticon of reverie:

images as brief as blinks

blended with the butterfly effects

of all her history.

4

“Tea or coffee, Miss?”

            asked deaf Alice with a voice

            like cracked parchment or burnt skin,

            as if she’d practiced sound

            from reading letters only,

            or ordered from a catalog

without ever having heard a word.

She hadn’t.

Ever.

Her attempt at speech

a willful feat;

how stubborn

no one knew but her.

Interpreting, the doctor ordered,

with soundless lips

while pointing at the menu.            

Hearing with her eyes

the waitress turned to fetch the tea

with sugar and with lemon

having clearly in her mind

a picture of the three.

As Alice set the service,

the doctor asked with gestures:

how far along was she?

Five fingers, then three

followed by a bent one

made it clear enough.

Two weeks or so to go

and she looked it;

she was very round.

Compelled by curiosity

and an educated guess,

the doctor sought  the manager

indulging a suspicion

forming in her mind.

“Unmarried, true, her second such,

destined for adoption, too.

A good employee, honest, cheerful,

hard working, sober when she is,

all of that is why I hired her

and why I’ll keep her on

when this is over.

No, no kin I know of

except her baby soon ,

and she’s not up to that,

not for lack of love, I’m sure,

but hers is such a heavy handicap,

misunderstood and borne alone,

it’s all that she can carry:

her own, of course,

and the burden of the child.”

The doctor listened carefully,

asked more questions,

guessed the size and weight

of her speculation.

Of the mother’s siblings,

she learned,

two of three were deaf at birth as well.

Unanswered and unanswerable:

will the baby hear?

When she’d made her phone call,

once she’d passed the story on

to her childless friends

further down the map

the deal breaker loomed larger

than the hope within the deal .

Time, so eloquent and final,

will tell- about the hearing;

it always does.

5

The childless couple

in a maze of desperation,

once the news reached them,

entered it in haste,

too keenly feeling incompletion,

already tensely aiming at one target,

another baby

they’ve been negotiating for,

due later by a month or more.

They’d now have a choice of two.               

First on the calendar, Maine child

with impetuosity

is now first in line,

but with the cast iron caveat:

it must hear perfectly.

Now, so much to do:

lawyers and impending mother, 

clear contract with no maybes,

with provision for return ,

obstetrical  arrangements,

weighing the hospital’s pros and cons,       

assuring good postnatal care,

arranging payment of each bill as due.

Picking out a wardrobe?

Too early. Patience, patience.

The baby will remain in residence

until its health is verified and stable,

its hearing certified by audiologist,

and unknown things overlooked

unexpected, or forgotten as they come..

6

Birth can be sad when mother wakes

and baby sleeps right on

in separate beds,

in separate rooms.

A child is born

into this dreamlike day.

The mother wakes -her job is done,

but hasn’t seen her little one,

and won’t,

she has agreed it’s best for all

to form no further  bond

that must be further broken.

The baby wakes in thin October light

and cries because it is so bright.

Does she know her mother isn’t there?

Does she feel like something’s missing?

One cord’s been cut, one more remains.

She’ll never be this small again.

This is her time- purely,

before others enter in.

Birth is bookend one,

tombstone date the other;

of a pair, a half.

Her lifestone lies

at the very heart

of time to come .

No message here

in the space that follows,

no borrowed verse expressing pride:

of name, of marriage, parentage,

of property or roots, of profit or its fruit,

of loss of others come and gone before,                

or the hope to join them,

only unspoken, unwrit, implied:

hello, to all that is to come.

One more thing upon it.

Dusted on with chalk

by poised hand;

her certificate of birth

pending ink and final naming.

Those who will not sail it

are not to name the boat.

Baby Doe, her maiden name.

She lies within a borrowed wrapping.

How could she own, she has not earned.

Chrysalis statistically: one hand clapping.

She does not even own her name,

it will be taken from her, exchanged

upon her transplantation.

7

This baby girl born at the stony throat,

of scrawny neck of Belfast Bay,        

high upon a hill where summer folk played

while wild fragaria and bleuets  

were in season, red and blue,

then departed frost-driven

as southward as their money flowed.

The summer folk were relatively rich and few

and when they blew and went kerchew

they contained themselves with handkerchiefs

the locals washed and ironed,

the mother being one of them:

maid of all work,

a domestic factotum capable as well         

of heavier odd jobbing like working

in his boatyard with her pa.

Often nanny, good with children, 

loved by them for her good heart

and gentle, caring  ways.

8

The hospital appears to be

at the edge of century;

though it’s had its share of time

it’s sounder than it seems

to eye of first time visitor.

It’s time for it to don

before the coming winter

another coat of “Old Oyster White”

to trigger hunger or  desire,

a name the color or enticement?

Looks like oyster, smells like paint

thinned out with turpentine

redolent of wind bent pine

another local flavor.

The trim: “Sea Bottom Black”,

another merchandising whim,

delineates the woodwork trim,

and that’s the black and white of it.

Not too cold to paint outside

if the paint can dry in time.

Seashell walks and lobsterpots, 

kelp, some flotsam and some jetsam,

compete with trees and shrubbery

to set the stage for tourists

consistent with the rest of town

presenting what it always was

along with what it is:

props set for the tourists,                

to show them what they want to see

and put them in the mood for buying it:

memento, knick knack, souvenir,

to make them want to take it home

as treasure to be hidden in plain sight

upon a dusty shelf

or buried in a treasure chest,

with no hope of future treasure hunt.

Half disrobed for the season

so intimate in detail

across the crystal space

the far shores seem so near today-

magnified, precise, pristine-

that they could rest

in one’s opened hand

compelling one to see

what one had been before

merely looking toward instead of at.

Between,

the gently ruffled water lies in rows,

as if blue plowed liquid field,

or ornate ceiling of lobsterland

above a floor, imagined

seabottom black.

9

On her porch the mother rose

crossing to its railing

she realized an edge of cliff,

a shock she quickly backed away from

because the vision was too sharp,

the danger more immediate

than her inner pain,

too tempting to be reconciled today.

Procrastination was an easier abstraction,

lying beneath her lowered lids, and inward.

Even so, what she sees

is less than what she feels

yet startlingly more evident

            than what lies beneath her lowered lids,

inward and behind them.

No locked cell,

in lemon linen private room

high atop asylum.

She’s sad, not mad.

It’s not that kind of prison,

more a refuge, a retreat,

a safe alternative to street.

What she did was not a crime

although she suffered punishment

in her own mind.

What is the kinder word,

less likely to offend:

impecunious, impoverished

or just plain poor?

Now that’s incarceration . . .

This mother is all that and more.

Bringing that to bear on this:

she has another  child

which she didn’t have before.

She had decision, not a choice,

what depth of feeling is involved

only she could say if she would speak.

Born deaf as stone,

her eyes work well

and she’s not dull.

She can read and write,

communicate without handicap

with pen and ink on paper;

how portable is that?

Untrained, she drew the birds

she loved and fed by hand-

on her own time.

Her mind, translated through her hand and eyes,

has discussed, stated, “listened” and responded.

Settled without duress,

This is equation’s only balance.

She’s accepted that,

she knows what is and isn’t,

she comprehends impossible

she knows what penalties 

stubbornness would cost her daughter.

Like mothers everywhere who care

(there are some who don’t)

she wants her baby,

to become, to have better,

to find comfort affordably,

to have goals and reach them,

to prosper.

There may be altruistic genes,

more likely enlightened self-interest

cast against the wall of probability

as dice to offer better odds,

at least ones that feel better.

10

One of those odd buildings

appearing larger inside than out

the hospital has two stories,

three on the right

above the original structure,

taking about a third of its width.

Alice is in one of the higher rooms

facing east toward the Bay and beyond

a vista permanent in her blood

and in immediacy

            the reality became a cliff

            that once drew her near,

then into retreat

from imagined floor of lobster land-

sea bottom black.

Turning, facing her room:

a door,

a single bed,

a rack to hang a few things on,

a dresser with a looking glass looking out,

            its drawers discretely closed,

a tray with wheels, upon it:

 jars adorned with fleur de lis,

a pitcher and a stoneware bowl,

mismatched wash cloth and towel,

a plate with egg upon its face,

an empty coffee cup,

a glass with milk upon its lip,

a vase to put some flowers in,

no rug upon the floor, sandpaper clean,

the only window at her back

fortunate to catch the morning sun,

beneath the bed a relic chamber pot,

(her bathroom’s just around the corner.)

alarm clock to awaken her,

but she’s been awake.

She knows she’s had a child

(how could she not?)

and some of why and how;

she’s not a medieval maiden.

She has not seen it.

but knows it’s there

somewhere.

She has of course not heard it.

She packs everything she brought with her,

prematurely, from the dresser and the rack,

then stiffly rests,

not supposed to use her feet just yet,

but restless, rises,

confronts the mirror

explores it:

no flowers in the room,

a card, no, two,

one letter and a telegram,

under the bed the other shoe

beside the antique chamber pot,

redundantly competing with a bed pan

and adjacent bathroom.

All is as it should be

according to the plan.

What’s missing is her baby.

She cries at that from time to time,

it tugs at her.

A fertile woman without strings

and wanting none, we think,

though she tied a knot or two.

11

Put the first stone in the scale,

You who weigh her here:

round and usually jolly,

short and often puckish

a loose woman so-called back then

with a fun loving reputation,

a free spirit as seen by some,

by others, freer than she should have been,

wanting all that she could get,

not knowing how to pay for it,

she took it as it came.

Smart and impish,

a sometimes silly prankster,

occasionally a vagabond,

sometimes with a man.

In short, a character

in the good sense of the word,

animated, mischievous- and sad

for what she didn’t know

that she was missing.

To whom could she confide,

with whom seek counsel?

You have to know who writes

when you open book to read.

One size does not fit all,

it takes knowledge

to know where to look

and recognize what’s found.

She did well with what she had,

beneath our notice,

all that weight

with so little light

shone on it.

12

Her daughter drinks a lot

gets high on milk,

coos and gurgles when she’s held,

or passed around from eager hands

to the welcome of the next,

cries when she doesn’t get

what she knows not how to ask for,

is in all ways unhousebroken,

untamed it might also be said,

demands attention,

cannot decide to smile,

but seems working on the knack of it,

has nothing yet to dream

(we think, but do not know.)

She is too tiny to break anything yet

with her temper alone,

has nothing of her own to break.

13

One road out of here squiggles northward

toward Canada and the Upper Pole,

can been seen from her window

fading into that distance

now that the leaves are down.

Beyond that little-traveled road:

a land increase more than a hill

a modest mound of evergreens

Spruce and Fir and Hemlocks.

This Northern road leads shortly

past a wooden sign:

“You are now exactly halfway

between North Pole and Equator.”

Awesome and deceptive,

leading toward belief

that there are only two ways to go,

and one to stay.

How can that be?

Equator? North Pole.

Too vast for the imagination

or too local

while sitting before a wood stove

or a fireplace, imagining stars and galaxies?

14

Look down, madam

you can see your toes now

without bending over;

you’ve shed a watermelon.

Relief or an increase in girth:

the dilemma.

You fought against abortion,

or was that battle fought for you?

That was decision number one

which led to number two

giving time for thoughtfulness

and realization of inevitability:

some problems do not go away.

If there were winds upon the hill

to sweep the chill inside

to emphasize this drama

to make this transplant take

grafting living skin on living doubt.

No room for doubt!

Done, done, done and done,

it’s done.

Without the wind

it’s warm enough to take the baby home

with it: cold enough to leave it

But there is no wind today,

only the lingering of faint indecision.

Done!

15

The stork returned a fortnight hence,

with steel wings and  occupants,

a barren wife, infertile,

the pilot husband,

and the doctor of it all,

she who could not save herself,

came North approaching Winter

descending from the Southern sky

parting  geese to land

and claim the child

at who knows what a pound

to become a passenger,

a family member.

Then the silver plane turned round

and those within left the town.

16

You gave the least a mother could;

you gave your daughter motherhood

Where is your baby now?

Flying southward toward Equator

as do birds and kings for winter.

You can’t afford a ticket

and won’t buy a stamp.

You’ve closed that door,

now to nail it shut.

L17 ®Copyright 1973 Jack Scott. All rights reserved.

From Poemystic.com

Birth                                       

             1

Nests are not thrown together,

but carefully assembled ,

knit together piece by piece,            

knots on a string of choices             

a snippet at a time, a straw, a twig,            

slips and strips of yarn and threads,                       

feathers, down and seaweed,           

stems of weeds and flower heads-       

industry and patience yoked

together toward common end.

No drawing board, no architect or plan,

no preconception evident ;                          

this hatches from its own intelligence,

its own egg, this idea of nest,

to begin this duet of certainty

to flesh these ideas out.

Predestined partners in this now,   

basketweaving Yin and Yang                          

absolutely bound to coincide.         

In their flights of Maypole spiraling

he selects the territory, she the site.

In their magic how do they know

when nest is done?

When the egg is in it.

Some say god is in the details,

stepping stones to excellence;

others say the devil’s there

to seek or cause the finest flaw                   

and thwart the scheme of things.                

The essence of the universe,

might be the sum of details.

What’s a person or an egg,

but a smaller sum of all of these?

2

So it is beyond these fences

within broader boundaries

enclosing more

that can’t be weighed or measured

in tangibility.

Sweat, for instance,

between two bodies slippery in their heat,

careless in the transience of their lust.                   

She can’t hear the skeins of sound

loosed by their embrace- she’s deaf,

but he is deafer

to things far subtler than sound,     

the silent sire who first begot

and then was not.

3

Vacationing from pain,

as far away as she can get,

self-medicating doctor explores by eye

horizon across the Belfast Bay

from her chair upon the porch,

scans the nearer islands,

enjoys her stereopticon of reverie:

images as brief as blinks

blended with the butterfly effects

of all her history.

4

“Tea or coffee, Miss?”

            asked deaf Alice with a voice

            like cracked parchment or burnt skin,

            as if she’d practiced sound

            from reading letters only,

            or ordered from a catalog

without ever having heard a word.

She hadn’t.

Ever.

Her attempt at speech

a willful feat;

how stubborn

no one knew but her.

Interpreting, the doctor ordered,

with soundless lips

while pointing at the menu.            

Hearing with her eyes

the waitress turned to fetch the tea

with sugar and with lemon

having clearly in her mind

a picture of the three.

As Alice set the service,

the doctor asked with gestures:

how far along was she?

Five fingers, then three

followed by a bent one

made it clear enough.

Two weeks or so to go

and she looked it;

she was very round.

Compelled by curiosity

and an educated guess,

the doctor sought  the manager

indulging a suspicion

forming in her mind.

“Unmarried, true, her second such,

destined for adoption, too.

A good employee, honest, cheerful,

hard working, sober when she is,

all of that is why I hired her

and why I’ll keep her on

when this is over.

No, no kin I know of

except her baby soon ,

and she’s not up to that,

not for lack of love, I’m sure,

but hers is such a heavy handicap,

misunderstood and borne alone,

it’s all that she can carry:

her own, of course,

and the burden of the child.”

The doctor listened carefully,

asked more questions,

guessed the size and weight

of her speculation.

Of the mother’s siblings,

she learned,

two of three were deaf at birth as well.

Unanswered and unanswerable:

will the baby hear?

When she’d made her phone call,

once she’d passed the story on

to her childless friends

further down the map

the deal breaker loomed larger

than the hope within the deal .

Time, so eloquent and final,

will tell- about the hearing;

it always does.

5

The childless couple

in a maze of desperation,

once the news reached them,

entered it in haste,

too keenly feeling incompletion,

already tensely aiming at one target,

another baby

they’ve been negotiating for,

due later by a month or more.

They’d now have a choice of two.               

First on the calendar, Maine child

with impetuosity

is now first in line,

but with the cast iron caveat:

it must hear perfectly.

Now, so much to do:

lawyers and impending mother, 

clear contract with no maybes,

with provision for return ,

obstetrical  arrangements,

weighing the hospital’s pros and cons,       

assuring good postnatal care,

arranging payment of each bill as due.

Picking out a wardrobe?

Too early. Patience, patience.

The baby will remain in residence

until its health is verified and stable,

its hearing certified by audiologist,

and unknown things overlooked

unexpected, or forgotten as they come..

6

Birth can be sad when mother wakes

and baby sleeps right on

in separate beds,

in separate rooms.

A child is born

into this dreamlike day.

The mother wakes -her job is done,

but hasn’t seen her little one,

and won’t,

she has agreed it’s best for all

to form no further  bond

that must be further broken.

The baby wakes in thin October light

and cries because it is so bright.

Does she know her mother isn’t there?

Does she feel like something’s missing?

One cord’s been cut, one more remains.

She’ll never be this small again.

This is her time- purely,

before others enter in.

Birth is bookend one,

tombstone date the other;

of a pair, a half.

Her lifestone lies

at the very heart

of time to come .

No message here

in the space that follows,

no borrowed verse expressing pride:

of name, of marriage, parentage,

of property or roots, of profit or its fruit,

of loss of others come and gone before,                

or the hope to join them,

only unspoken, unwrit, implied:

hello, to all that is to come.

One more thing upon it.

Dusted on with chalk

by poised hand;

her certificate of birth

pending ink and final naming.

Those who will not sail it

are not to name the boat.

Baby Doe, her maiden name.

She lies within a borrowed wrapping.

How could she own, she has not earned.

Chrysalis statistically: one hand clapping.

She does not even own her name,

it will be taken from her, exchanged

upon her transplantation.

7

This baby girl born at the stony throat,

of scrawny neck of Belfast Bay,        

high upon a hill where summer folk played

while wild fragaria and bleuets  

were in season, red and blue,

then departed frost-driven

as southward as their money flowed.

The summer folk were relatively rich and few

and when they blew and went kerchew

they contained themselves with handkerchiefs

the locals washed and ironed,

the mother being one of them:

maid of all work,

a domestic factotum capable as well         

of heavier odd jobbing like working

in his boatyard with her pa.

Often nanny, good with children, 

loved by them for her good heart

and gentle, caring  ways.

8

The hospital appears to be

at the edge of century;

though it’s had its share of time

it’s sounder than it seems

to eye of first time visitor.

It’s time for it to don

before the coming winter

another coat of “Old Oyster White”

to trigger hunger or  desire,

a name the color or enticement?

Looks like oyster, smells like paint

thinned out with turpentine

redolent of wind bent pine

another local flavor.

The trim: “Sea Bottom Black”,

another merchandising whim,

delineates the woodwork trim,

and that’s the black and white of it.

Not too cold to paint outside

if the paint can dry in time.

Seashell walks and lobsterpots, 

kelp, some flotsam and some jetsam,

compete with trees and shrubbery

to set the stage for tourists

consistent with the rest of town

presenting what it always was

along with what it is:

props set for the tourists,                

to show them what they want to see

and put them in the mood for buying it:

memento, knick knack, souvenir,

to make them want to take it home

as treasure to be hidden in plain sight

upon a dusty shelf

or buried in a treasure chest,

with no hope of future treasure hunt.

Half disrobed for the season

so intimate in detail

across the crystal space

the far shores seem so near today-

magnified, precise, pristine-

that they could rest

in one’s opened hand

compelling one to see

what one had been before

merely looking toward instead of at.

Between,

the gently ruffled water lies in rows,

as if blue plowed liquid field,

or ornate ceiling of lobsterland

above a floor, imagined

seabottom black.

9

On her porch the mother rose

crossing to its railing

she realized an edge of cliff,

a shock she quickly backed away from

because the vision was too sharp,

the danger more immediate

than her inner pain,

too tempting to be reconciled today.

Procrastination was an easier abstraction,

lying beneath her lowered lids, and inward.

Even so, what she sees

is less than what she feels

yet startlingly more evident

            than what lies beneath her lowered lids,

inward and behind them.

No locked cell,

in lemon linen private room

high atop asylum.

She’s sad, not mad.

It’s not that kind of prison,

more a refuge, a retreat,

a safe alternative to street.

What she did was not a crime

although she suffered punishment

in her own mind.

What is the kinder word,

less likely to offend:

impecunious, impoverished

or just plain poor?

Now that’s incarceration . . .

This mother is all that and more.

Bringing that to bear on this:

she has another  child

which she didn’t have before.

She had decision, not a choice,

what depth of feeling is involved

only she could say if she would speak.

Born deaf as stone,

her eyes work well

and she’s not dull.

She can read and write,

communicate without handicap

with pen and ink on paper;

how portable is that?

Untrained, she drew the birds

she loved and fed by hand-

on her own time.

Her mind, translated through her hand and eyes,

has discussed, stated, “listened” and responded.

Settled without duress,

This is equation’s only balance.

She’s accepted that,

she knows what is and isn’t,

she comprehends impossible

she knows what penalties 

stubbornness would cost her daughter.

Like mothers everywhere who care

(there are some who don’t)

she wants her baby,

to become, to have better,

to find comfort affordably,

to have goals and reach them,

to prosper.

There may be altruistic genes,

more likely enlightened self-interest

cast against the wall of probability

as dice to offer better odds,

at least ones that feel better.

10

One of those odd buildings

appearing larger inside than out

the hospital has two stories,

three on the right

above the original structure,

taking about a third of its width.

Alice is in one of the higher rooms

facing east toward the Bay and beyond

a vista permanent in her blood

and in immediacy

            the reality became a cliff

            that once drew her near,

then into retreat

from imagined floor of lobster land-

sea bottom black.

Turning, facing her room:

a door,

a single bed,

a rack to hang a few things on,

a dresser with a looking glass looking out,

            its drawers discretely closed,

a tray with wheels, upon it:

 jars adorned with fleur de lis,

a pitcher and a stoneware bowl,

mismatched wash cloth and towel,

a plate with egg upon its face,

an empty coffee cup,

a glass with milk upon its lip,

a vase to put some flowers in,

no rug upon the floor, sandpaper clean,

the only window at her back

fortunate to catch the morning sun,

beneath the bed a relic chamber pot,

(her bathroom’s just around the corner.)

alarm clock to awaken her,

but she’s been awake.

She knows she’s had a child

(how could she not?)

and some of why and how;

she’s not a medieval maiden.

She has not seen it.

but knows it’s there

somewhere.

She has of course not heard it.

She packs everything she brought with her,

prematurely, from the dresser and the rack,

then stiffly rests,

not supposed to use her feet just yet,

but restless, rises,

confronts the mirror

explores it:

no flowers in the room,

a card, no, two,

one letter and a telegram,

under the bed the other shoe

beside the antique chamber pot,

redundantly competing with a bed pan

and adjacent bathroom.

All is as it should be

according to the plan.

What’s missing is her baby.

She cries at that from time to time,

it tugs at her.

A fertile woman without strings

and wanting none, we think,

though she tied a knot or two.

11

Put the first stone in the scale,

You who weigh her here:

round and usually jolly,

short and often puckish

a loose woman so-called back then

with a fun loving reputation,

a free spirit as seen by some,

by others, freer than she should have been,

wanting all that she could get,

not knowing how to pay for it,

she took it as it came.

Smart and impish,

a sometimes silly prankster,

occasionally a vagabond,

sometimes with a man.

In short, a character

in the good sense of the word,

animated, mischievous- and sad

for what she didn’t know

that she was missing.

To whom could she confide,

with whom seek counsel?

You have to know who writes

when you open book to read.

One size does not fit all,

it takes knowledge

to know where to look

and recognize what’s found.

She did well with what she had,

beneath our notice,

all that weight

with so little light

shone on it.

12

Her daughter drinks a lot

gets high on milk,

coos and gurgles when she’s held,

or passed around from eager hands

to the welcome of the next,

cries when she doesn’t get

what she knows not how to ask for,

is in all ways unhousebroken,

untamed it might also be said,

demands attention,

cannot decide to smile,

but seems working on the knack of it,

has nothing yet to dream

(we think, but do not know.)

She is too tiny to break anything yet

with her temper alone,

has nothing of her own to break.

13

One road out of here squiggles northward

toward Canada and the Upper Pole,

can been seen from her window

fading into that distance

now that the leaves are down.

Beyond that little-traveled road:

a land increase more than a hill

a modest mound of evergreens

Spruce and Fir and Hemlocks.

This Northern road leads shortly

past a wooden sign:

“You are now exactly halfway

between North Pole and Equator.”

Awesome and deceptive,

leading toward belief

that there are only two ways to go,

and one to stay.

How can that be?

Equator? North Pole.

Too vast for the imagination

or too local

while sitting before a wood stove

or a fireplace, imagining stars and galaxies?

14

Look down, madam

you can see your toes now

without bending over;

you’ve shed a watermelon.

Relief or an increase in girth:

the dilemma.

You fought against abortion,

or was that battle fought for you?

That was decision number one

which led to number two

giving time for thoughtfulness

and realization of inevitability:

some problems do not go away.

If there were winds upon the hill

to sweep the chill inside

to emphasize this drama

to make this transplant take

grafting living skin on living doubt.

No room for doubt!

Done, done, done and done,

it’s done.

Without the wind

it’s warm enough to take the baby home

with it: cold enough to leave it

But there is no wind today,

only the lingering of faint indecision.

Done!

15

The stork returned a fortnight hence,

with steel wings and  occupants,

a barren wife, infertile,

the pilot husband,

and the doctor of it all,

she who could not save herself,

came North approaching Winter

descending from the Southern sky

parting  geese to land

and claim the child

at who knows what a pound

to become a passenger,

a family member.

Then the silver plane turned round

and those within left the town.

16

You gave the least a mother could;

you gave your daughter motherhood

Where is your baby now?

Flying southward toward Equator

as do birds and kings for winter.

You can’t afford a ticket

and won’t buy a stamp.

You’ve closed that door,

now to nail it shut.

L17 ®Copyright 1973 Jack Scott. All rights reserved.

From Poemystic.com

Birth                                       

             1

Nests are not thrown together,

but carefully assembled ,

knit together piece by piece,            

knots on a string of choices             

a snippet at a time, a straw, a twig,            

slips and strips of yarn and threads,                       

feathers, down and seaweed,           

stems of weeds and flower heads-       

industry and patience yoked

together toward common end.

No drawing board, no architect or plan,

no preconception evident ;                          

this hatches from its own intelligence,

its own egg, this idea of nest,

to begin this duet of certainty

to flesh these ideas out.

Predestined partners in this now,   

basketweaving Yin and Yang                          

absolutely bound to coincide.         

In their flights of Maypole spiraling

he selects the territory, she the site.

In their magic how do they know

when nest is done?

When the egg is in it.

Some say god is in the details,

stepping stones to excellence;

others say the devil’s there

to seek or cause the finest flaw                   

and thwart the scheme of things.                

The essence of the universe,

might be the sum of details.

What’s a person or an egg,

but a smaller sum of all of these?

2

So it is beyond these fences

within broader boundaries

enclosing more

that can’t be weighed or measured

in tangibility.

Sweat, for instance,

between two bodies slippery in their heat,

careless in the transience of their lust.                   

She can’t hear the skeins of sound

loosed by their embrace- she’s deaf,

but he is deafer

to things far subtler than sound,     

the silent sire who first begot

and then was not.

3

Vacationing from pain,

as far away as she can get,

self-medicating doctor explores by eye

horizon across the Belfast Bay

from her chair upon the porch,

scans the nearer islands,

enjoys her stereopticon of reverie:

images as brief as blinks

blended with the butterfly effects

of all her history.

4

“Tea or coffee, Miss?”

            asked deaf Alice with a voice

            like cracked parchment or burnt skin,

            as if she’d practiced sound

            from reading letters only,

            or ordered from a catalog

without ever having heard a word.

She hadn’t.

Ever.

Her attempt at speech

a willful feat;

how stubborn

no one knew but her.

Interpreting, the doctor ordered,

with soundless lips

while pointing at the menu.            

Hearing with her eyes

the waitress turned to fetch the tea

with sugar and with lemon

having clearly in her mind

a picture of the three.

As Alice set the service,

the doctor asked with gestures:

how far along was she?

Five fingers, then three

followed by a bent one

made it clear enough.

Two weeks or so to go

and she looked it;

she was very round.

Compelled by curiosity

and an educated guess,

the doctor sought  the manager

indulging a suspicion

forming in her mind.

“Unmarried, true, her second such,

destined for adoption, too.

A good employee, honest, cheerful,

hard working, sober when she is,

all of that is why I hired her

and why I’ll keep her on

when this is over.

No, no kin I know of

except her baby soon ,

and she’s not up to that,

not for lack of love, I’m sure,

but hers is such a heavy handicap,

misunderstood and borne alone,

it’s all that she can carry:

her own, of course,

and the burden of the child.”

The doctor listened carefully,

asked more questions,

guessed the size and weight

of her speculation.

Of the mother’s siblings,

she learned,

two of three were deaf at birth as well.

Unanswered and unanswerable:

will the baby hear?

When she’d made her phone call,

once she’d passed the story on

to her childless friends

further down the map

the deal breaker loomed larger

than the hope within the deal .

Time, so eloquent and final,

will tell- about the hearing;

it always does.

5

The childless couple

in a maze of desperation,

once the news reached them,

entered it in haste,

too keenly feeling incompletion,

already tensely aiming at one target,

another baby

they’ve been negotiating for,

due later by a month or more.

They’d now have a choice of two.               

First on the calendar, Maine child

with impetuosity

is now first in line,

but with the cast iron caveat:

it must hear perfectly.

Now, so much to do:

lawyers and impending mother, 

clear contract with no maybes,

with provision for return ,

obstetrical  arrangements,

weighing the hospital’s pros and cons,       

assuring good postnatal care,

arranging payment of each bill as due.

Picking out a wardrobe?

Too early. Patience, patience.

The baby will remain in residence

until its health is verified and stable,

its hearing certified by audiologist,

and unknown things overlooked

unexpected, or forgotten as they come..

6

Birth can be sad when mother wakes

and baby sleeps right on

in separate beds,

in separate rooms.

A child is born

into this dreamlike day.

The mother wakes -her job is done,

but hasn’t seen her little one,

and won’t,

she has agreed it’s best for all

to form no further  bond

that must be further broken.

The baby wakes in thin October light

and cries because it is so bright.

Does she know her mother isn’t there?

Does she feel like something’s missing?

One cord’s been cut, one more remains.

She’ll never be this small again.

This is her time- purely,

before others enter in.

Birth is bookend one,

tombstone date the other;

of a pair, a half.

Her lifestone lies

at the very heart

of time to come .

No message here

in the space that follows,

no borrowed verse expressing pride:

of name, of marriage, parentage,

of property or roots, of profit or its fruit,

of loss of others come and gone before,                

or the hope to join them,

only unspoken, unwrit, implied:

hello, to all that is to come.

One more thing upon it.

Dusted on with chalk

by poised hand;

her certificate of birth

pending ink and final naming.

Those who will not sail it

are not to name the boat.

Baby Doe, her maiden name.

She lies within a borrowed wrapping.

How could she own, she has not earned.

Chrysalis statistically: one hand clapping.

She does not even own her name,

it will be taken from her, exchanged

upon her transplantation.

7

This baby girl born at the stony throat,

of scrawny neck of Belfast Bay,        

high upon a hill where summer folk played

while wild fragaria and bleuets  

were in season, red and blue,

then departed frost-driven

as southward as their money flowed.

The summer folk were relatively rich and few

and when they blew and went kerchew

they contained themselves with handkerchiefs

the locals washed and ironed,

the mother being one of them:

maid of all work,

a domestic factotum capable as well         

of heavier odd jobbing like working

in his boatyard with her pa.

Often nanny, good with children, 

loved by them for her good heart

and gentle, caring  ways.

8

The hospital appears to be

at the edge of century;

though it’s had its share of time

it’s sounder than it seems

to eye of first time visitor.

It’s time for it to don

before the coming winter

another coat of “Old Oyster White”

to trigger hunger or  desire,

a name the color or enticement?

Looks like oyster, smells like paint

thinned out with turpentine

redolent of wind bent pine

another local flavor.

The trim: “Sea Bottom Black”,

another merchandising whim,

delineates the woodwork trim,

and that’s the black and white of it.

Not too cold to paint outside

if the paint can dry in time.

Seashell walks and lobsterpots, 

kelp, some flotsam and some jetsam,

compete with trees and shrubbery

to set the stage for tourists

consistent with the rest of town

presenting what it always was

along with what it is:

props set for the tourists,                

to show them what they want to see

and put them in the mood for buying it:

memento, knick knack, souvenir,

to make them want to take it home

as treasure to be hidden in plain sight

upon a dusty shelf

or buried in a treasure chest,

with no hope of future treasure hunt.

Half disrobed for the season

so intimate in detail

across the crystal space

the far shores seem so near today-

magnified, precise, pristine-

that they could rest

in one’s opened hand

compelling one to see

what one had been before

merely looking toward instead of at.

Between,

the gently ruffled water lies in rows,

as if blue plowed liquid field,

or ornate ceiling of lobsterland

above a floor, imagined

seabottom black.

9

On her porch the mother rose

crossing to its railing

she realized an edge of cliff,

a shock she quickly backed away from

because the vision was too sharp,

the danger more immediate

than her inner pain,

too tempting to be reconciled today.

Procrastination was an easier abstraction,

lying beneath her lowered lids, and inward.

Even so, what she sees

is less than what she feels

yet startlingly more evident

            than what lies beneath her lowered lids,

inward and behind them.

No locked cell,

in lemon linen private room

high atop asylum.

She’s sad, not mad.

It’s not that kind of prison,

more a refuge, a retreat,

a safe alternative to street.

What she did was not a crime

although she suffered punishment

in her own mind.

What is the kinder word,

less likely to offend:

impecunious, impoverished

or just plain poor?

Now that’s incarceration . . .

This mother is all that and more.

Bringing that to bear on this:

she has another  child

which she didn’t have before.

She had decision, not a choice,

what depth of feeling is involved

only she could say if she would speak.

Born deaf as stone,

her eyes work well

and she’s not dull.

She can read and write,

communicate without handicap

with pen and ink on paper;

how portable is that?

Untrained, she drew the birds

she loved and fed by hand-

on her own time.

Her mind, translated through her hand and eyes,

has discussed, stated, “listened” and responded.

Settled without duress,

This is equation’s only balance.

She’s accepted that,

she knows what is and isn’t,

she comprehends impossible

she knows what penalties 

stubbornness would cost her daughter.

Like mothers everywhere who care

(there are some who don’t)

she wants her baby,

to become, to have better,

to find comfort affordably,

to have goals and reach them,

to prosper.

There may be altruistic genes,

more likely enlightened self-interest

cast against the wall of probability

as dice to offer better odds,

at least ones that feel better.

10

One of those odd buildings

appearing larger inside than out

the hospital has two stories,

three on the right

above the original structure,

taking about a third of its width.

Alice is in one of the higher rooms

facing east toward the Bay and beyond

a vista permanent in her blood

and in immediacy

            the reality became a cliff

            that once drew her near,

then into retreat

from imagined floor of lobster land-

sea bottom black.

Turning, facing her room:

a door,

a single bed,

a rack to hang a few things on,

a dresser with a looking glass looking out,

            its drawers discretely closed,

a tray with wheels, upon it:

 jars adorned with fleur de lis,

a pitcher and a stoneware bowl,

mismatched wash cloth and towel,

a plate with egg upon its face,

an empty coffee cup,

a glass with milk upon its lip,

a vase to put some flowers in,

no rug upon the floor, sandpaper clean,

the only window at her back

fortunate to catch the morning sun,

beneath the bed a relic chamber pot,

(her bathroom’s just around the corner.)

alarm clock to awaken her,

but she’s been awake.

She knows she’s had a child

(how could she not?)

and some of why and how;

she’s not a medieval maiden.

She has not seen it.

but knows it’s there

somewhere.

She has of course not heard it.

She packs everything she brought with her,

prematurely, from the dresser and the rack,

then stiffly rests,

not supposed to use her feet just yet,

but restless, rises,

confronts the mirror

explores it:

no flowers in the room,

a card, no, two,

one letter and a telegram,

under the bed the other shoe

beside the antique chamber pot,

redundantly competing with a bed pan

and adjacent bathroom.

All is as it should be

according to the plan.

What’s missing is her baby.

She cries at that from time to time,

it tugs at her.

A fertile woman without strings

and wanting none, we think,

though she tied a knot or two.

11

Put the first stone in the scale,

You who weigh her here:

round and usually jolly,

short and often puckish

a loose woman so-called back then

with a fun loving reputation,

a free spirit as seen by some,

by others, freer than she should have been,

wanting all that she could get,

not knowing how to pay for it,

she took it as it came.

Smart and impish,

a sometimes silly prankster,

occasionally a vagabond,

sometimes with a man.

In short, a character

in the good sense of the word,

animated, mischievous- and sad

for what she didn’t know

that she was missing.

To whom could she confide,

with whom seek counsel?

You have to know who writes

when you open book to read.

One size does not fit all,

it takes knowledge

to know where to look

and recognize what’s found.

She did well with what she had,

beneath our notice,

all that weight

with so little light

shone on it.

12

Her daughter drinks a lot

gets high on milk,

coos and gurgles when she’s held,

or passed around from eager hands

to the welcome of the next,

cries when she doesn’t get

what she knows not how to ask for,

is in all ways unhousebroken,

untamed it might also be said,

demands attention,

cannot decide to smile,

but seems working on the knack of it,

has nothing yet to dream

(we think, but do not know.)

She is too tiny to break anything yet

with her temper alone,

has nothing of her own to break.

13

One road out of here squiggles northward

toward Canada and the Upper Pole,

can been seen from her window

fading into that distance

now that the leaves are down.

Beyond that little-traveled road:

a land increase more than a hill

a modest mound of evergreens

Spruce and Fir and Hemlocks.

This Northern road leads shortly

past a wooden sign:

“You are now exactly halfway

between North Pole and Equator.”

Awesome and deceptive,

leading toward belief

that there are only two ways to go,

and one to stay.

How can that be?

Equator? North Pole.

Too vast for the imagination

or too local

while sitting before a wood stove

or a fireplace, imagining stars and galaxies?

14

Look down, madam

you can see your toes now

without bending over;

you’ve shed a watermelon.

Relief or an increase in girth:

the dilemma.

You fought against abortion,

or was that battle fought for you?

That was decision number one

which led to number two

giving time for thoughtfulness

and realization of inevitability:

some problems do not go away.

If there were winds upon the hill

to sweep the chill inside

to emphasize this drama

to make this transplant take

grafting living skin on living doubt.

No room for doubt!

Done, done, done and done,

it’s done.

Without the wind

it’s warm enough to take the baby home

with it: cold enough to leave it

But there is no wind today,

only the lingering of faint indecision.

Done!

15

The stork returned a fortnight hence,

with steel wings and  occupants,

a barren wife, infertile,

the pilot husband,

and the doctor of it all,

she who could not save herself,

came North approaching Winter

descending from the Southern sky

parting  geese to land

and claim the child

at who knows what a pound

to become a passenger,

a family member.

Then the silver plane turned round

and those within left the town.

16

You gave the least a mother could;

you gave your daughter motherhood

Where is your baby now?

Flying southward toward Equator

as do birds and kings for winter.

You can’t afford a ticket

and won’t buy a stamp.

You’ve closed that door,

now to nail it shut.

L17 ®Copyright 1973 Jack Scott. All rights reserved.

From Poemystic.com

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