The Morning After

And so the date is done and I've counted another year, brought in the day with drink and an overflowing cup of friendship. (the last four drinks were probably unnessecary and show that I may be older but I'm not getting any wiser). The naked exhibitionism that is this blog is also testament to the immaturity and suspectness of my edifice, dear reader. So trust my words no more than you would the breeze.
The first person to call was my mother, who I love for her peculiar honesty and intuition, whose articulation of the fear that can accompany the birth of a child, has left me with a precious awareness of the subtext in motherhood. As a youngling playing with large-eyed dolls, I had always assumed that women were filled with immense joy after the birth of a child. That it was one of those blessed, unambiguous states of being....
I'm thinking today of women and men who don't quite feel so fantastic, who are hit with waves of doubt, who were/are good mothers and fathers, despite the apprehension and loss of self that accompanies birth.
I thought this sort of feeling was not possible to translate into language. But of course, a poet would find a way to do it. Sylvia Plath's 'Morning Song' is perhaps the most brilliant articulation of the awe and fear surrounding birth I have ever read. It's not important to know, but she wrote it shortly after she became a mother.
The startling genius of this poem is hard to break down, but read it once, pause and then read it again. Wonder at her command of language and metaphor, rythm and structure and then look around and see if your world still looks the same.

MORNING SONG

Love set you going like a fat gold watch.
The midwife slapped your footsoles,
and your bald cry
Took its place among the elements.

Our voices echo, magnifying your arrival.
New statue. In a drafty museum, your nakedness
Shadows our safety. We stand round blankly as walls.

I’m no more your mother
Than the cloud that distils a mirror to reflect its own slow
Effacement at the wind’s hand.

All night your moth-breath
Flickers among the flat pink roses. I wake to listen:
A far sea moves in my ear.

One cry, and I stumble from bed, cow-heavy and floral
In my Victorian nightgown.
Your mouth opens clean as a cat’s. The window square
Whitens and swallows its dull stars. And now you try
Your handful of notes;
The clear vowels rise like balloons.