I'm expecting a child...first one and totally suprised. I started a journal of poems (some mine) about this whole strange new world I am encountering.
Got any good ones? songs are ok, too.
Congratulations !
.........................
Love affair
Margaret Fishback ( from Look who's a mother ! )
Some day he'll think me rather silly
But now he loves me willy-nilly
There'll come a time when his inspection
Will tell him I am not perfection
And he'll unearth some younger cutie
Who far surpasses me in beauty.
So while I have him in my arms
I'll make the most of all my charms
And store up memories to last
When I am dwelling in the past.
For though my hold on him is strong
He cannot stay a baby long.
................................................
Boy wanted
Margaret Fishback
Although I'm hoping to beget
a son, I know I shall not fret
If little Gus turns out to be
A frilly, frothy, frou-frou she.
.........................
I have some information for your files
by Nicholas Gordon
I have some information for your files,
A tidbit that might underline your day,
Most suited to the gentlest of smiles:
Please mark before you file it away.
Regarding information: some may render
Every passion previous absurd,
Giving your experience a splendor
New risen with the wonder of a word.
All you've ever known or has occurred
Now will be transfigured instantly:
To process, read the left side vertically.
....................................
At six weeks, Baby grinned a grin
That spread from mouth to eyes to chin,
And Doc, that smartie, had the brass,
To tell me it was only gas!
- Margaret Fishback
...................................
We celebrate the coming birth
(by Nicholas Gordon)
We celebrate the coming birth
Of an angel come to Earth,
Resembling now a basketball,
But soon our love, our life, our all.
...................................
When my body is mine
In six months' time,
When my body is mine
And I can eat what I please
I'll eat pate and tripe
Drink wine and Red Stripe
And mountains of unpasteurised cheese.
....................
Congratulations, you'll get the hang of it by about the third.
It's a promise
Margaret Fishback ( Look who's a mother !)
May heaven help me not to bore
My friends with talk of teething.
They've met such miracles before,
Including even breathing.
They've seen their share of babes in bed
Some somnolent, some sprightly.
They've heard what Little Mary said,
And oh'd and ah'd politely.
So I
ll be kind to kin and kith
And mind my subject matter.
Unless they persecute me with
Their own maternal chatter !
...........................
Program for a new mother
Fishback ...
Bottle, porridge, spoon in it,
Catch it nimbly on the chin.
Change her little pants and then
Change her little pants again.
Sterilize each cap and nipple,
That the babe may safely tipple.
Bathe and oil the chubby lamb,
Change and air her in her pram.
Now it's clear the tiny tol'll
Gladly have another bottle.
Now the time grows riper and riper
For another change of diaper.
.............................
Three is a crowd
Fishback ...
Having a baby isn't what hurts -
It's finding a place to keep her shirts,
Her sweaters and quilts, her gowns and bands,
Her bootees knitted by loving hands,
Her pram, her pen, and her bassinet,
Her hampers for diapers, dry and wet ...
A tiny baby in a tiny flat
Leaves nobody room to hand a hat !
.......................
Look who's a mother is an book, published in 1945,
with a lot of adorable poems ( by a favorite poet ... )
Congratulations! Will you name it Emule? (I notice that in this year's crop of freshpersons, there seem to be loads of Laurens)
A few more poems:
Ode to a Baby
by Ogden Nash
A bit of talcum
Is always walcum.
Song To Be Sung By The Father Of Infant Female Children*
Ogden Nash
My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky;
Contrariwise, my blood runs cold
When little boys go by.
For little boys as little boys,
No special hate I carry,
But now and then they grow to men,
And when they do, they marry.
No matter how they tarry,
Eventually they marry.
And, swine among the pearls,
They marry little girls.
Oh, somewhere, somewhere, an infant plays,
With parents who feed and clothe him.
Their lips are sticky with pride and praise,
But I have begun to loathe him.
Yes, I loathe with loathing shameless
This child who to me is nameless.
This bachelor child in his carriage
Gives never a thought to marriage,
But a person can hardly say knife
Before he will hunt him a wife.
I never see an infant (male),
A-sleeping in the sun,
Without I turn a trifle pale
And think is he the one?
Oh, first he'll want to crop his curls,
And then he'll want a pony,
And then he'll think of pretty girls,
And holy matrimony.
A cat without a mouse
Is he without a spouse.
Oh, somewhere he bubbles bubbles of milk,
And quietly sucks his thumbs.
His cheeks are roses painted on silk,
And his teeth are tucked in his gums.
But alas the teeth will begin to grow,
And the bubbles will cease to bubble;
Given a score of years or so,
The roses will turn to stubble.
He'll sell a bond, or he'll write a book,
And his eyes will get that acquisitive look,
And raging and ravenous for the kill,
He'll boldly ask for the hand of Jill.
This infant whose middle
Is diapered still
Will want to marry My daughter Jill.
Oh sweet be his slumber and moist his middle!
My dreams, I fear, are infanticiddle.
A fig for embryo Lohengrins!
I'll open all his safety pins,
I'll pepper his powder, and salt his bottle,
And give him readings from Aristotle.
Sand for his spinach I'll gladly bring,
And Tabasco sauce for his teething ring.
Then perhaps he'll struggle though fire and water
To marry somebody else's daughter.
*Reverse the genders as necessary
pam
Congratulations Talia!
-------------------
Woman to Child
You who were darkness warmed my flesh
where out of darkness rose the seed.
Then all a world I made in me;
all the world you hear and see
hung upon my dreaming blood.
There moved the multitudinous stars,
and coloured birds and fishes moved.
There swam the sliding continents.
All time lay rolled in me, and sense,
and love that knew not its beloved.
O node and focus of the world;
I hold you deep within that well
you shall escape and not escape-
that mirrors still your sleeping shape;
that nurtures still your crescent cell.
I wither and you break from me;
yet though you dance in living light
I am the earth, I am the root,
I am the stem that fed the fruit,
the link that joins you to the night.
Judith Wright
----------------
My Baby Has No Name Yet
My baby has no name yet;
like a new-born chick or a puppy,
my baby is not named yet.
What numberless texts I examined
at dawn and night and evening over again!
But not one character did I find
which is as lovely as the child.
Starry field of the sky,
or heap of pearls in the depth.
Where can the name be found, how can I?
My baby has no name yet;
like an unnamed bluebird or white flowers
from the farthest land for the first,
I have no name for this baby of ours.
Kim Nam-jo
(trans from Korean by Ko Won)
Talia,
Give a new word to the world;
your child will move the stars for you.
Not even the singelest grain of sand
can hold its own; make room for your tomorrows.
Peter
Congratulations!
This may not be to everyone's taste, but it always gives me a lump in my throat.
Evangeline Paterson (I think) -
On this doorstep I stand year after year
To watch you going and think:
May you not skin your knees.
May you not catch your fingers in car doors.
May your hearts not break.
May tide and weather wait for your coming
And may you grow strong to break
All webs of my weaving.
beautiful, Gem
So far all I feel is that last one.
Beautiful words. My problem is my favorite TV show is Roseanne....hard to see life in such reality.
Sorry I'm so negative.
EXPECTING YOU
The distance of you and I—
My brain, heart—our fetus.
You came to me impossibly—
Massive intrusion of an iceberg.
And so you are the iceberg and I am sailing
Into a vision or delusion that imparts:
“Why can’t you behave?”
and so I fell into fawn-fearful eyes
of midnight highway gore.
But, hush, my dear Iceberg,
I did not plant you—
But you and I—our fetus
We’re sailing, sailing, over the extraordinary,
And though my first castle in the sky has cracked—
It is still intact, and I sigh and I sigh;
With terror, I sigh.
With thrill, I sigh.
My heart floats as a cloud—
Separates, fills, and pours down
Rains, rains down the uncertain
Each morning I think of you,
And with each trepidation, we meet again.
And you will be either ruby or pearl—
Either sunflower or rose.