From the archives – Birth Song — Dennis Greene

Birth Song

Somewhere beyond the reach of memory
and wet with life and heat and sweat and sex,
he touched the moon’s dark deep fallopian tubes,
and shaped them with his love and thrusting hips;

and I became and fell through to the womb,
and through the womb into the blood-bright day
a puling mewling puking bloody mess
with Tuesday’s grace, and blood dried on my face.

And all that leaves to talk about is life
the cleaning up, the sending on your way
the going left and right and wrong and straight,
the shapes within the shapes within the shape.

This is the legend of my birth, my life,
I learnt it—and then taught myself belief.

by Dennis Greene

from Autumn Sky Poetry Number 13, April 2009

Photo by Christine Klocek-Lim