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10. BIRTHINGS
Holding my hand
The figure in black walked me
On a carpet spread on water
To a pond ringed by
Electric green grass.
On the pond's surface
Black mirror-smooth
A flock of white swans
Dreaming.
I turned to the figure—
Pushing away the veil of shadows
She revealed her exquisitely crafted
Nubian-black face
Inlaid ivory eyes set
Nobly apart.
Unblinking
We stared at each other until
Surface differences cleared away.
Then hand in hand we walked
Along the bank to a stream
Feeding into the pond.
*
A pair of white swans followed
And looking at them the woman said
"These are the spirit's children-to-be"
And pointing to one she added
"This is a spirit girl."
"Then the other is a boy?" I asked.
My guide looked away.
Lifting the other swan by the neck
And seeing a vulva under the feathers
I asked "Are there spirit boys?"
"These swans are also sons
Of the spirit."
Having to see for myself
I lifted first one then the other swan
Out of water and finding penises
Where vulvas were before
I understood that spirit gender
Is interchangeable.
Taking leave
The black woman suggested
I stay put and wait.
Taking her advice
I drew a circle around myself
And set down waiting.
But it was impossible to sit still—
Seeds swarming in bone marrow
Inflicted a horrendous itch and
After scratching myself to bleeding
I leaped over the line and ran.
*
Hearing a giggle inside me
I stopped and stood still—
Did the babe
Begotten under the plum tree
Know of things beyond my grasp?
From thereon whatever I thought
The babe redressed
Whatever I asked
The babe answered
Whatever I looked at—
Sunset mountain cricket—
The babe sucked on it until
I pulled my eyes away.
At the end of gestation
The belly too heavy to carry
In the sling of my arms
I lay in birthing positions
To no avail.
I tried to coax the babe to come out
And look at this or that magnificent view—
This too came to naught.
The gentle approaches failing
I squatted over smoldering coals
But nothing worked—
The ways of flesh
Did not apply.
*
I slipped into a world where
Birds behaved like fish,
Trees branched like rivers
Mountains ebbed with the tide.
I was turning in a bed of water
When an infant slipped
Through my pressed thighs.
Straining to look at it I saw
Another and another and many more
Spirit infants pop up—
Gathering the litter in the bed sheet
I took it next door where
Cooing approvingly wet nurses
Took the bundle and
Sent me back for more.
At the threshold
Stood Mother waiting for me
Holding her melon breasts
Nipples dripping
Up to my lips.
The mother lode I sucked
Overfilled my own breasts
And dripping wet I turned to
My daughter standing behind me.
And as she sucked my mother's milk
I watched her childish breasts
Swell to bursting—
Milk-filled breasts in a child's hands
She turned around offering them
To a promise.
Continuity assured we exalted
In the daughters to come.
*
One night I gave birth to three children
Strung on a morning-glory blue
Umbilical cord.
I was washing the blue away when
The firstborn, a boy spirit
Delivered another boy spirit and
The next in line a girl spirit
Who delivered another boy.
What the spirit conceived
Under the plum tree
Took years to deliver.
Those sprung forth in public
Entered the world prematurely.
To give them a second chance
I'd swallow them whole—
On those days
What I touched oozed blood
What I drank tasted of blood
Tongue stained red sloshed
In the salt of blood.
Emptied of seed
I moved in with the scores of children
And found every one of them
In the image of me.
The plurality of selves however
Was deceptive—each child
Had the spirit for one task only and
None possessed more than one skill—
To listen talk or look or
Walk or sleep or sneeze.
A simple task called for many
To complete—
One would pick a colored thread
Another snip the yarn
The third thread the needle
The forth push it through fabric
The fifth pull it through
To the other side and so on.
Not all the children fared well as
Only those engaged seemed to thrive
While those pampered by nurses withered.
When a blue-stained longing swept the region
The idle ones were the first to succumb—
They shriveled away leaving behind
Two eyeballs in a nest of dust—
The eyeballs I swallowed and
The children were then reborn
To some other task.
The surviving children
Came only at night to deliver
Some urgent message.
By the time they woke me they'd
Forgotten what they'd come to say.
To refresh their memory I'd listen
For an odd word in their babble then
Repeated it insistently until in a blurt
The message came out—
"To learn is to forget" or
"To choose is to err" or
"To improve is to regress."
From time to time I retreated
To a windowless private chamber
Where I abandoned myself to
The silence of stone.
This time around
I reclined on a sarcophagus and
Fixing my gaze on distances
Turned to marble.
A spirit boy with a cherubic smile
Entered the chamber and
Walking around me he
Pissed nonstop on my pristine
Marble flanks staining them with
Wide iodine bands.
Ready to strangle the youngster
I tried to get up but stone
Would not release me.
Ignoring stone's timing
I pulverized marble
Granule by tiny granule from within.
When I finally stood up
In the cloud of dust
The prankster was
Nowhere to be seen.
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