Nursing your baby

  Livets början präglar det andra inlägget i "Motherhood". Amning har ibland orsakat rabalder i sociala medier. Hos Poetry with Blues gör vi matstunden till lördagspoesi.

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  I kväll har jag valt tre dikter ur antologin "Mothersongs", utgiven av Norton & Company. Redaktörer för boken är Sandra M. Gilbert, Susan Gubar och Diana O'Hehir.
  Den andra delen av boken har rubriken "Love's labor: Birthing and Nursing".

The chair by the window, by  Anne Winters (f. 1939)
(From Mothersongs : poems for, by, and about mothers. New York : W.W. Norton, 1995.)

Your rhythmic nursing slows. I feel
your smile before I see it: nipple pinched
in corner of mouth, your brimming, short, tuckcornered
smile. I shake my head, my no vibrates
to you through ribs and arms. Your tapered ears
quiver, work faintly and still pinker, my
nipple spins right out and we
are two who sit and smile into each other's eyes.

Again, you frowning farmer, me your cow:
you flap one steadying palm against my breast,
thump down the other, chuckle, snort, and then
you're suddenly under, mouth moving steadily, eyes
drifting past mine abstracted, your familiar
blue remote and window-paned with light.

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  Den mest välkända dikten ur det andra avsnittet i antologin måste nog Sylvia Plaths "Morning song" vara. Fast den dikten har redan förekommit i bloggen. Så det får bli en annan bekant författare.

Night feed, by Eavan Boland (f. 1944)
(From Mothersongs : poems for, by, and about mothers. New York : W.W. Norton, 1995.)

This is dawn.
Believe me
This is your season, little daughter.
The moment daisies open,
The hour mercurial rainwater
Makes a mirror for sparrows.
It’s time we drowned our sorrows.

I tiptoe in.
I lift you up
Wriggling
In your rosy, zipped sleeper.
Yes, this is the hour
For the early bird and me
When finder is keeper.

I crook the bottle.
How you suckle!
This is the best I can be,
Housewife
To this nursery
Where you hold on,
Dear Life.

A silt of milk.
The last suck.
And now your eyes are open,
Birth-colored and offended.
Earth wakes.
You go back to sleep.
The feed is ended.

Worms turn.
Stars go in.
Even the moon is losing face.
Poplars stilt for dawn
And we begin
The long fall from grace.
I tuck you in.

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  Jag avslutar med en riktig mysstund, den tredje dikten i sviten "Eating babies", författad av Chana Bloch.

Eating babies (III), by Chana Bloch (f. 1940)
(From Mothersongs : poems for, by, and about mothers. New York : W.W. Norton, 1995.)

3

WATCH HIM sleeping. Touch
the pulse where
the bones haven’t locked
in his damp hair:
the navel of dreams.
His eyes open for a moment, underwater.

His arms drift in the dark
as your breath
washes over him.

Bite one cheek. Again.
It’s your own
life you lean over, greedy,
going back for more.