When the baby slips...

When the baby slips, warm from the womb, from a familiar wetness to the moisture of its mothers thighs, its eyes alight.

Bright and clear, wonderful and wandering.

 It knew where it was going long before it came.

I watch the baby, pale blue but changing, toes tinge pink and spread a little in anticipation of what its wrinkled skin might touch. Colour reaches arms, chest, face, and the eyes that were before such a glow in a sea of cool coloured flesh are now matched with a body awash with the same dazzling life.

Eyes meet eyes, breath is shared in a harmonious inhale as mother and infant regain the rhythm of unity that they have shared for so many moons.

This is the moment that all have waited for. In the dimness of the birthing room, the air scented with the sweetness of amniotic waters and new beginnings, an old soul has entered the world again and the memories of his past illuminate him. Not visible to all but there nonetheless, the mother and child shine silver and pink and gold. A searching mouth finds its habitat and nuzzles, liquid gold starts a little and halts; begins again to ease out and nurture the baby in the sort of tiny volume that is as precious as water in the desert.

When the baby slips, warm from the womb, not coerced or forced but calm and free, from a familiar wetness to the warmth of its mother’s embrace, the world stops turning for a second and the sun, moon and stars hold no comparison to the dazzle of the duo who knew each other long before their fingers touched.

Ringlets and Springlets

As Spring fills the air and enlivens the Earth beneath my pink-polished toes, a new budding bloom is unfurling in the enriched fertile grounds of myself...

As birds awaken a sunstroke earlier and cheep life into the warmer morning haze, a fuzzy little chicklet, the creation of my egg, is learning how to open and close it's mouth; practices the oval and puckered shapes of a cry, a gurgle and a nuzzle ahead of it's first feed and cry, 5 months from now...

As my little curly girls shake their head 'no' to the clock striking bedtime in what appears to their sunlight-triggered minds to be midday, as their hot tears spring down tired faces and bedtime approaches despite springtime's late West-setting sun... in the midst of it all I wonder whether the little head inside of me is sprouting similar ringlets. Is that crazy-busy-baby in there ready to settle into the folds of mama's belly, as the curly haired girls outside, in the place this baby will one day called home, reluctantly yet immediately burrow their own faces into the crevices of their bedsheets....?

As another new day dawns and I watch the fat little fingers of my toddler work circles on my sunkissed, swollen stomach and thegolden-blonde-crowned head of my big girl moves to coincide with the excitement that she displays with wide-eyed nod to my tummy, I am marvelling at it all. They do not question, they accept. They do not worry, they laugh. They do not think of this lifeform as magic...it just is.

The Springtime, their sibling inside of me, the creation of new, the growth of life- we are enveloped in it all. It is enveloped inside me now. But the curly-haired girls are, to me, the most miraculous part of everything: they disregard the miracle and enjoy the experience.

If only we could all be curly-haired little girls. We would be ourselves and nothing other, be honest about yet nonchalent about our loves and refrain from pretence. Oh to be surrounded by curls... what a wonderful place this would be.