Mon Fils

by Ondine Evans

One gigantic push from the deepest deepest part of myself
And you burst forth into my life.
The atoms of the universe rearranged 
themselves around you
And the shape of my life changed.

Time stretched and shrank as I gazed into your eyes,
I fell down inside your soul,
Lost in milky wonderment for months on end,
Sleep deprived, all at sea in the novelty of motherhood.

You shook my foundations with your tiny squalling glory.
For all the preparation, reading, classes, equipment bought,
Nothing prepared me for the totality with which you consumed me
- my body, my attention, my heart.

And I did it all over again with your little sister.
My body remembered everything from you,
But still she came in a blaze of wonderment.
My more practiced ways were tested anew as she imposed her will.
She was not the same, proving the fallacy of tabula rasa beyond a doubt.

You were the sun ablaze, she was the moon pulling my tides,
And I named you both thus and thus.
The irony of yin and yang - you are such opposites, and contradict your names.
Parts of me, parts of your father, and that mysterious other part, unique, the total more than sum.

You, however, were the first. My life will never be the same, my son.
There was before. And after - the entry to the mystic hall of motherhood.
So many cliches, rules and homilies.
So much advice, most untaken, all unbidden.
And the truth. The veracity, the absoluteness of you.

No-one could have told me that it would be like this. Only your very self.

Written in response to exercise for Wednesday 17th August