Wishing for the Doula

Wishing for the Doula

I do not remember the moment, but my mother did.
She is no longer with us, so I cannot ask her again.
Like most births (and I was her first) it was a mess of
blood and tissue, anticipation and pain. I know I
kept her up all night,
arriving sometime around 2 a.m.
I do not remember going home the first time,
or the house where I was nursed and fed.
I know it was Marlin, TX, but I’ve never been there,
and perhaps never will. Scratch that,
of course I was there, helplessly bound to a
newborn’s memory. I depend on my parents’ stories
to remind me of my origin.

I am not sure I remember, either, the moment the Spirit
blew through me like
hot Texas wind. I am not sure the time when I first heard
the breeze circle around me pushing thunder and clouds
around my soul like
storms playing handball between hills and rivers.
I do know, however, the few times I have shuddered,
the handful of fingers that caressed my face, and felt
just like
a mother’s touch answering my tiny cry for cuddles
and swaddling.

I cannot recollect if, after all the labors, womb to
headfirst appearance, I had been born at all. Again,
I would read the inscriptions left for me
almost 7 decades ago, to find a story that meshes
with my mood.

You can call it flame, you can call it rebirth,
you can call it water, you can call it wind,
you can call it natural, you can call it divine,
you can call it anything you want if you have enough time.

I’m
only wishing for the doula to remind me
what it meant to be born once, or twice, or ever,
or at all.