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day comes when your waist disappears,
your glow grows from a tiny zygote to
full-fledged fetus and then, all at once,
you can no longer bend or lay flat in bed,
you go on as you started, exchanging
secret messages with the promised child ~

and now, the miraculous moment, you move
from one into two, the nine-month stretch
along the pathway of life and hope, birthing
a new generation: your handsome boy,
lion maned, his fingers grasping your heart,
launched, from dark into light, washed with
the fiercest love and swaddled in faith

“There should be a song for women to sing at this moment or a prayer to recite. But perhaps there is none because there are no words strong enough to name that moment.” Anita Diamant, The Red Tent

© 2017, poem and photographs, Jamie Dedes, All rights reserved

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