Motherhood means I get to prep my baby for maturity. But lately I’ve been painfully missing that totally dependent baby who used to sleep next to me every night. Here’s a poem about that and my longing to experience it again.
Wait, wait.
Wasn’t this just yesterday?
Mini-breaths blowing in my face
held between two dimpled hands
listening to JJ Heller’s album—
God reminding me then
the sweetness of that season,
even in that season.
But like the sweetest aroma
that at once fills nostrils and lungs
this scent must soon flee
and become…a memory,
a piercing longing.
Could I taste those moments again
in salty tears
I’d be feasting.
This baby loses her gummy smile
and sense of absolute dependence,
but I gain the arms of God
which gently carry those with young
and wrap around the hearts of them
who long but tarry
to carry again.
