Ultrasound

Novel unbegun,
half-loaf rising,
lighthouse northward
and anchor south.

Lemon to grapefruit,
you sleep-step sidewise,
turnover, pop-up,
tongue in the mouth.

-- Rachel Richardson ( ) Berkeley born and based American poet

Before the Birth of One of Her Children

All things within this fading world hath end,
Adversity doth still our joyes attend;
No ties so strong, no friends so dear and sweet,
But with death’s parting blow is sure to meet.
The sentence past is most irrevocable,
A common thing, yet oh inevitable.
How soon, my Dear, death may my steps attend,
How soon’t may be thy Lot to lose thy friend,
We are both ignorant, yet love bids me
These farewell lines to recommend to thee,
That when that knot’s untied that made us one,
I may seem thine, who in effect am none.
And if I see not half my dayes that’s due,
What nature would, God grant to yours and you;
The many faults that well you know I have
Let be interr’d in my oblivious grave;
If any worth or virtue were in me,
Let that live freshly in thy memory
And when thou feel’st no grief, as I no harms,
Yet love thy dead, who long lay in thine arms.
And when thy loss shall be repaid with gains
Look to my little babes, my dear remains.
And if thou love thyself, or loved’st me,
These o protect from step Dames injury.
And if chance to thine eyes shall bring this verse,
With some sad sighs honour my absent Herse;
And kiss this paper for thy loves dear sake,
Who with salt tears this last Farewel did take.

-- Anne Bradstreet (1612-1672), British born American Puritan poet; first woman poet to gain acclaim in the New World and New England. She emigrated to America in 1630 with her father and her husband aboard the Arbella and settled in Ipswich, MA. She bore eight children between 1632-1655. From her book The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America.

The Pool

Are you alive?
I touch you.
You quiver like a sea-fish.
I cover you with my net.
What are you—banded one?

-- H. D. (1886-1961), Hilda Doolittle, memoirist, novelist, essayist, and modernist poet written as she expected her first child in 1915.

The Pool

Are you alive?
I touch you.
You quiver like a sea-fish.
I cover you with my net.
What are you—banded one?

-- H. D. (Hilda Doolittle) (1886-1961), American poet, novelist, essayist, and translator.; LGBTQ pioneer. This poem was written while she was expecting her first child with husband Richard Aldington.

the lost baby poem

the time i dropped your almost body down
down to meet the waters under the city
and run one with the sewage to the sea
what did i know about waters rushing back
what did i know about drowning
or being drowned

you would have been born into winter
in the year of the disconnected gas
and no car      we would have made the thin
walk over genesee hill into the canada wind
to watch you slip like ice into strangers’ hands
you would have fallen naked as snow into winter
if you were here i could tell you these
and some other things

if i am ever less than a mountain
for your definite brothers and sisters
let the rivers pour over my head
let the sea take me for a spiller
of seas      let black men call me stranger
always      for your never named sake

--Lucille Clifton (1936-2010), African American poet, children's book author, professor of humanities, three time finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, Poet Laureate of Maryland 1974-1985, from good woman: poems and a memoir, 1969-1980.

Image: Marika Reinke, Goodbye Adrian: A Story of Miscarriage, 2013.

Stillborn Elegy

We can't remember her name, but we remember where
we buried her. In a blanket the color of a sky that refuses birds.

The illiterate owls interrogate us from the trees, and we answer,
We don't know. Maybe we named her Dolores, for our grandmother,

meaning sadness, meaning the mild kisses of a priest.
Maybe we called her Ruth, after the missionary who gave us

a rifle and counterfeit wine. We blindfolded our sister and tied
her hands because she groped the fence looking for the rabid fox

we nailed to a post. Katydids sang with insistent summer urge
and the cavalier moon grew more slender. In the coyote hour,

we offered benedictions for a child we may have named Aja,
meaning unborn, meaning the stillness that entered us,

which is the stillness inside the burnt piano, which is also
the woman we untie, who is the mother of stillness.

--Traci Brimhall (1982- ), American poet, professor, Poet Laureate of Kansas 2023-2026. From Our Lady of the Ruins, 2014.

Image: Marika Reinke, Untitle Chaos, painted after her miscarriage in 2008, found here.

Song for Baby-O, Unborn

Sweetheart
when you break thru
you’ll find
a poet here
not quite what one would choose.

I won’t promise
you’ll never go hungry
or that you won’t be sad
on this gutted
breaking
globe

but I can show you
baby
enough to love
to break your heart
forever

-- Diane Di Prima (19340-2020), feminist Beat poet, short-story writer, named Poet Laureate of San Francisco in 2009, and Buddhist.

Blessing for a Pregnant Woman

The following may be used either privately or at a public service.

 

O Lord and giver of life, receive our prayer for N. and for the child she has conceived, that they may happily come to the time of birth, and serving you in all things may rejoice in your loving providence. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. 

 

When appropriate, any or all of the following may be added:

Blessed are you, Lord God. You have blessed the union of N. and N. Amen.

Blessed are you, Lord God. May your blessing be upon N. and the child she carries. Amen. 

 

Blessed are you, Lord God. May this time of pregnancy be for N. and N. months of drawing nearer to you and to one another. Amen. 

 

Blessed are you, Lord God. May N. and N.’s experience of birth be full of awe and wonder and the joy of sharing in your creation. Amen. 

 

Blessed are you, Lord God. Let the fullness of your blessing be upon those whom we bless in your Name: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen. 

 

-- From the Book of Occasional Services, 2018, pp 139-140