baby talk

For almost 14 years, I have worked in a pediatric hospital. It wasn't until last week during a mindfulness session that I began to really contemplate the infants who come into this world, their time here predestined to be brief.

Somehow, a discussion that started with the question, “What grounds you?” found its way into a myriad of connected tangents; something that was shared awakened thoughts put safely away probably the first time I was faced with a baby that was going to die. All day I was needled, stitching words in the back of my head until a small poetic blanket quietly unraveled on the page.

baby talk©

what is the message of a baby born to die
a tiny body pushed into an abbreviated life cycle,
outside the womb with a finite number of days ahead
the circle of life measuring a circumference as small as they.
why have they arrived, what did they come to say
with words never to come forth from sweet puckered mouths.
fluttering lashes speak quick tongue
staccato fists whisper against the air
a cry to forever scribe our heart.

each one not here to stay
to tell something before they go...
                                                       listen.

and....

keep your peepers open!®