ghosteen

"..in the confusion that afflicts the world today, i see a disrespect for the very values of life. beauty is all about us, but how many are blind to it! they look at the wonder of this earth — and seem to see nothing. people move hectically but give little thought to where they are going…

each second we live in a new and unique moment of the universe, a moment that never was before and will never be again. and what do we teach our children in school? we teach them that two and two makes four, and that paris is the capital of france. when will we also teach them what they are? we should say to each of them: do you know what you are? you are a marvel. you are unique. in all of the world there is no other child exactly like you. in the millions of years that have passed there has never been another child like you. and look at your body — what a wonder it is! your legs, your arms, your cunning fingers, the way you move! you may become a shakespeare, a michelangelo, a beethoven. you have the capacity for anything. yes, you are a marvel. and when you grow up, can you then harm another who is, like you, a marvel? you must cherish one another. you must work — we all must work — to make this world worthy of its children..." ~ pablo casals

and so, almost eight months later we sat 
in unseasonably warm sunshine 
in the park within the hospital grounds 
overlooked on one side by the NICU 

and i imagined those nurses, 
who i truly do believe are angels, 
taking a break from alarms and charts 
and life and death to look out of the window 
at the children and their parents down below. 
seeing, but not recognising us. 
seeing our little world and not realising 
that without them we wouldn't have been sat there 
in the afternoon sun. we would never have been three. 

and my gratitude was and is overflowing. 
thank you doesn't even begin to cover it. 
i count my blessings. 
a thousand times a day i count them, 
that he's here and healthy and got to come home. 
in eight months he has grown my heart a hundred fold. 
my cup runneth and runneth over.

you are not here by accident. 

you are light, love. 

and dark. 

and tread the line between the two. 

my hope: 

to heartfeel-bonedeep know 

that despite distances and differences 

we're all here, in it together. 

to strive to live 

from an undivided place 

and pay more attention,

and respect,

to the life surrounding us. 

it matters. 

may we find joy, peace and rest as needed 

and discover wonder when we least expect it..

i've been lucky. 
nothing good i've ever done was really planned and plotted. 
always willing to fall into things by chance. 

even you. 
you weren't in any conscious plan, but always 
i felt something inside of me connecting me to the idea of you. 
and when you arrived, smaller than the eye can see, 
a tiny world in the universe of my body, 
i knew.  

but the enormity.

the practicalities of what it all meant. 
torn between birth, rebirth and staying on the same meandering, comfortable path. 
which, in all kinds of ways, meant death. 

my foundations were rumbled and i chose you. 
and from now until forever i'll choose you . 

for those seven months could you hear my heart, 
forever yours, breaking, expanding, singing? 

can you, even now? 

in giving birth to you, i re-birthed myself. 

never a fan a labels, i am now holding tight to that of 'mother'. 

back then i was mistaken in thinking you were a tiny world. 
you are the sun. my sun. my son. my everything. 
you are the best thing i ever did, that ever happened to me, my greatest gift.

the privilege of my life is to love, guide and nurture you. 
in raising you i raise myself, 
discard the old skins and wonder at the new growth, 
the vastness and rawness of my heart and this universe 
in which we are links in a chain basking in the gentle light of these winter days, 
that will inevitably turn to spring, then summer then autumn. 
we are all a part of the spiral. 

this time is short.