a (birth) love poem

The sun is setting.
The curtains glow floor to ceiling
with the last rays of the day
that came before the night
in which I will become a mother.

Out there the light fades,
and the people call it a good day.
In here the work is just beginning to take shape;
we know we will be changed.

The labor molds us as we move through it.
The effort to not resist
but to open up,

let go.
To embrace this pain as work
and love.

My being,
the baby inside this body,
this man at my side.
We share the work going down tonight
in this homey space.

We're in motion.
This will forever be our beginning.
It is ours.

Moved by a power
so loud and thunderous,
so proud and real,
it calls me back to myself.

Delineating an even stronger version of who I was
before I was Momma.

Reminding me that courage has lived here all along
and challenging me to engage with such intensity I feel I may break.

But instead I bend.
I make more room.
I call for help.

Buoyed by love from the ones I chose
to journey with me,
I'm surrounded by it.
Filled with it
as this miracle moves through me.

Firm, even, pressure
like cool sheets on warm skin,
his hands conform to these fatty hips and thighs.
Rhythmically he smooths out even the most powerful surges
with confident strokes.

It is dark now.
The contraction peaks
then fades away like a shadow in the night.

We labor on.
One contraction at a time.
We can do anything
he and I.