This poem is for our stillborn baby daughters who died in utero, each at around 6 months, in 2001 and 2004. Requiescat in pace, Mary Therese and Isobella Raine. Keep each other company till mama and daddy can join you. I called this painful poem "ecstasy" not as in bliss. In fact, ecstasy is nothing like blissful calm. It's intense, searing spiritual awakening. It hurts like fire. The mystics St. John of the Cross and St. Teresa of Avila (who elected herself my patroness) experienced this. Our Lady felt the seven Dolores (Sorrows) piercing her heart. Any parent, especially a mother, who has lost a child knows heart burn. The Heavenly Father Heart Burn, the Agony and Ecstasy
how dare the sun have shone
on this somber, funereal grey-grime day
what were the birds thinking, chirping
when we planted my little ladies in the ground?
They grandly call it internment
like the squirrel buries a nut
but dead things do not regrow
they just lie there, alone
I felt guilty putting my babies in that box.
What kind of mother does that?
A graveyard is cold and dark.
No place for a child to be
Not at night. Not alone.
They might wake frightened and need mama.
For many nights, months, years, decades after, I waked
Confused, anxious sure I heard them calling
Not knowing where they were
I am always there when my children need me
But I couldn't find these littlest ones
The ones who needed me most
Me, who couldn't let her children ride the bus
has abandoned her most vulnerable
like orphans wandering, crying for mother's arms
oh God, let death not be thus
we are told of a morning after
when the dead shall rise
I cling to that, desperately
the way my cat grabs my leg if he feels himself falling
Perhaps I'm short sighted.
I'm human, I cannot see with the eyes of the divine
and Father, the burn of heart
is pain like torture
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