Because I'm a mother now...

This which beats in my chest

I found

Is not a mere pump

It is not a mere organ

I have learned twelve years ago

Twelve of your pretty springs -

And many more to come Inshallah-

That the world should have safer playgrounds

To echo your early laughter

And all the beauties of the world

Should be your friends

The stars should be plucked out

To make wreaths and glitters

For every lovely smile

On your lovely face.

Your precious coming to the world

Taught me much more

Than all the books I read

And all the diplomas I sought

Before you, my ignorance could not

Lead me to why mighty men wept at wars

Or why proud women would become

Prostitutes for a meal a day

To bring home to their own

Or why beseech… or fight… or even conspire

For peace in a lost cause

If any of it could give one more child a safer day

Or why mother earth quakes every time

A mother buries her own

Not the other way around,

For she too is a mother.

Before you I did not understand

What it meant

When my dad, mighty in his majestic pride,

Turned around and walked away

When told there was no cure for me.

That was the time

When all the misery

Transmitted out in the air

Could not move a muscle in my stern face

That was a time when ignorance and rigidity

Coated my pump,

And pump was all it was good for.

The world conspires to make me believe

That I brought you to life,

That I brought you up

And taught you life

With my care and my love

And for that I am celebrated.

I marvel at that now.

Was I ever alive before you, sweet pumpkin?

The nights we shared your first laughter

Witnessed the first sparks of my true being

Making you laugh for longer

Seemed like the reason for my existence

Living to protect you from sheer air and light

Seemed sensible for the rest of my life.

And the nights when I would arch around you

Like a willow tree

Thinking the more I curl

The more I’ll take the pain away

From your feeble body

As colic brought your tears and soft cries

And my helplessness brought mine

This which beats in my chest

I found

Is not a mere pump

It can produce oceans of love

Oceans of love that to - my amazement –

Can reach out to the sides of the earth

And engulf people I don’t know

And children I never bore.

You have come into this world

And I have changed forever.

You… gave me life.

You… brought me up.

March 4^th, 2010-03-04