You know how you fall in love with a woman,
young, or at least never a mother,
still with that leanness hinting of girlhood;
and you have your times and adventures,
and wonderful moments together
enjoying all the sweet pleasures that come from love;
till the day comes when you realize –
you’ve grown familiar,
your routines are habits,
life has reached a crux,
will something be added?,
will something be lost?
And she turns to you one day in all her loveliness,
sitting leaning back, soaking up the sun at the beach,
as beautiful as you’ve ever imagined her,
and she says “I want a baby.”
“Of course,” you say, “I love you,”
and it takes a great deal of that to make a baby.
It is then that you learn why nature made love so engaging;
for love’s purpose is to remove the functioning of mind
from the process of reproduction.
Soon, she is absorbed completely in herself,
with life revolving around her three concerns:
what am I feeling?,
what am I eating?,
what am I wearing?
And you, dear boy,
are now a forgotten accessory of a former life,
a life completely taken over by the alien invader,
the explosion in the belly of your former manhood trophy.
You are no longer the practice child,
your second mother has gone,
your role now is to fetch and carry,
to bring what is needed for the comfort of her egg;
and so are children brought into this life.

Time passes,
it never seems that long in retrospect,
and the whole spectrum of this fresh childhood
flashes through your life, and your children grow,
to lose their fascination with your presence,
fading into a smattering of phone calls and birthday cards.

You glance up,
releasing a breath you may have held for decades,
and you see her again,
how beautiful, this mother you’ve married,
a bathing beauty you can still see so clearly
within that soft layer of maternity,
her mind abuzz with families of distractions,
seeing past you like a breeze she walks through
after decades of silent practice with each other.
Time and intermingled living add such depth
to what endures in our affections.
Ah, the young lovers, lost in each other,
how little they know of this love for a mother.
This trophy has taken you
from merely being a man to truly being a hero.
You see that girl who could dance all night,
you see that woman of love beyond dreaming.
You catch her eye, and ask “now?”
She smiles that smile, and walks your way.

3 April 2002

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