How Might One Be a Mother Without Children
How might one be a mother without children,
As though the contract weren't writ in blood?
Perhaps one's fate is more received than given,
Placed where one might seize it, if one would.
Yet what is cannot be undone.
Make of it the music of your dance,
Organ raptures ripped from ancient stone,
Transforming life to beauty from blind chance.
How might one be a mother in one's heart,
Embodying within the act the dream?
Reality is part terrain, part art,
'Twixt earth and will more lithe than it might seem.
So might the childless their children bear,
Delighting in a discourse no less rare,
As one makes of one's fate a gift that may
Yield grace attainable no other way.
Copyright by Nicholas Gordon. Free for personal or non-commercial use.
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