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A Mother's Song

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This post is a follow-up to the story of the accident in which God spared my life (When in doubt, posted on May 29th). It is also not really my post because my mother wrote it! She should be the one blogging, she's a much better writer than I. Notice the references to the accident and allusions to gymnastics. I would love to be able to write a poem like this for each one of my kids when they leave the house...still a few years away, though.



A Mother's Song
To Her First-born
On Her Twenty-first Birthday

You burst, bloody, on my weary soul.
Bathed in my tears, your downy cheek
Surprises,
Comforts a breast as yet unused,
Offered, bruised.
You look to me and drink.
Mother passion rises,
Born in after-pains.
My womb, your rock,
Would follow you.
With blood and milk
I bought you.
You are mine

Plaintive wail to happy babble,
Hands, once flailing, stroke my face.
From quiet eyes you, still, watch and drink.
Your wise smile seals our love, until

The crash

Wrenched you from my grasp.
Twist of a wheel,
Liquid seeped from mangled steel.
Abandoned I ran alone along an empty lane
Gasping in the rain.

I offered you by force.
So strong my grip that the impatient angel,
Bent on blessing, broke your hip.
But I rejoice.
For you are His.

Limp you lie, and lovely.
I raise you, altared, and alive
And lift my heart
In praise.

As he laid you whimpering in the weeds,
Did he smell the musty manger's hay
And mix your blood with Jesus' own that day?
Or fly away to show you heaven's vault
To bring you, beaming, from life's spring?
What lilting lullaby of mercy did he sing?
Revealing secrets written on white stone,
Instructing you in tongues as yet unknown?

How else might I explain
Your sure, unswerving
Path to wisdom's gain?
Her stamp is on you, 
No, her stain.
And soaked in Jesus' love
Your face shines pure.
Against no fettered doors you strain
To wrest a freedom, sour in pain.
You touch the gate,
Your eyes greet One you know.
And so my child,
Waste not an hour.
Go.
For He is yours.


Thank you, Mom!
Rebecca Jones
June, 1993
Escondido, California

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