Heavenly Mother
By Elaine Jarvis
God, I need to know,
do you have breasts?
And did you nurse creation
at your bosom?
Did you cradle it in newness---
tiny, fragile, wailing,
and feel the swell
of hopes and dreams
and Awe?
Did you, too, discover far too quickly
that to love someone you also must let go?
All my life, Lord,
I've known you as
HE
and that has been okay
until today.
Today, as I carry
in my heart,
and fear,
and prayer,
the child I also carried in my womb,
I need you to be
my heavenly Mother.
Today
I could not trust a God
who had not also
gazed with empty womb
upon the life she bore into existence
and asked,
"What more shall Love ask me to bear?"
From: "Perhaps A Door - New and Selected a Poems" by Elaine Jarvis
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