Inspirational Poetry

​Her First Calf
From - (1973) by Wendell Berry

Her fate seizes her and brings her down.
She is heavy with it. It wrings her.
The great weight is heaved out of her.
It eases.

She moves into what she has become,
sure in her fate now
as a fish free in the current.
She turns to the calf who has broken
out of the womb’s water and its veil.

He breathes. She licks his wet hair.
He gathers his legs under him
and rises. He stands, and his legs
wobble. After the months
of his pursuit of her, now
they meet face to face.

From the beginnings of the world
His arrival and her welcome
have been prepared. They have always
known each other.

​A Meeting

She steps into the dark swamp
where the long wait ends.

The secret slippery package
drops to the weeds.

She leans her long neck and tongues it
between breaths slack with exhaustion

and after a while it rises and becomes a creature
like her, but much smaller.

So now there are two. And they walk together
like a dream under the trees.

In early June, at the edge of a field
thick with pink and yellow flowers

I meet them.
I can only stare.

She is the most beautiful woman
I have ever seen.

Her child leaps among the flowers,
the blue of the sky falls over me

like silk, the flowers burn, and I want
to live my life all over again, to begin again,

to be utterly
wild.

I Wear My Stretchmarks Like Tattoos

to show

I am a woman

whose belly has billowed

a mainsail on a pirate ship

on its way to treasure

a queen-size-bed topsheet

on a new clothesline in March

they make

silver parentheses

around my freckled navel

tiny river tributaries

from the cold spring of my joy

pattern rising to the touch

The Beginning 
​by Kent L. Bijou

She looks at me with half closed eyes,
As if to pierce my soul.
The sounds she makes are strong and firm
For one just moments old
With skin still soft from life's ordeal
She muscles up a whine
Small fingers reach, yet never touch
But sure they will in time
For life's begun, and all is new
So many things to learn
She's not the first one nor the last
We've each once had our turn.

An Ode To Ethan 
​by Joyce Baron Kerr

Today it happened,
it's finally done,
the birth of my boy,
the little man, my son.

After a long tiring wait, 
a sweet sound came,
the point when our lives, 
would never be the same.

It was the sound of the cries,
signaling the start of new life.
I can't describe how proud I am, 
of my brave and beautiful wife.

I'll admit that I too,
cried tears of joy.
When for the very first time,
I at last saw my boy.

As I stood there in awe,
and gazed down at his face,
in an instant the world,
became a much better place.

My heart was bursting, 
with an intense sense of pride,
as I pictured my life, 
with my son at my side.

I know it's early days,
and we've only just met,
but I promise I'll be,
the best father a boy can get.

I'll love you forever,
my son and my wife,
keep you safe, and protect you, 
for all of my life