Holding It All

[chwarbri]

Holding It All


I sit here holding a sleeping child.

She is breathing the world into her swollen baby leg
so I can’t put her down.
Meanwhile, I take inventory of the balance of all else I hold:
You and your current challenges,
Your long dead yet not so dead mother,
Her burned down house
Full of memories of a life
lived as if.
I hold lost potential,
missed connections,
I hold the messages not yet listened to,
I hold the empty belly in potential that I will later fill.
Babygirl sleeps on,
Each tiny breath like a perfect shell washed up
On the beach of my consciousness.
And I hold the future of dreams that will and will not fulfill,
With faith that there will be a future when she wakes.
I sit with the glorious pressure of that little head
in the crook of my right arm.
And right here,
I hold love in all it’s forms and expressions.
And in the preciousness of this relationship,
I am remembering joy and comfort we sometimes give each other.
As I hold the promise to myself to remember
my right to be heard and loved and accepted
like the sleeping baby in my arms.
I hold this sleeping precious entity,
Watch her breathe away her own fever and pain
While the symphony of sound that is the world talks to itself
And we all pause to listen.