This week’s Dispatches from New Motherhood treat is a beautiful trio of poems from Sara Turner. In Facts of Life, Sara reflects on the enormity of motherhood, so unfathomable before giving birth, and its physical and emotional impacts. Growing is a perfectly formed and spirited message to her child. And in Mother’s Words the mother as writer speaks, in what is an incredibly moving and wonderfully expressed poem: ‘But my words, they are my soul.’ Altogether, Three Poems is an intimate and soulful collection, with a mother’s love beaming through.
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Three Poems
Sara Turner
Facts of Life
I created our world.
Nobody told me that this is what motherhood is.
That I would hold your story in my hands, my body.
I gave birth to your world and my own.
Nobody told me that your arrival would split me apart.
That after uncounted stitches, I would shield you from such breakages.
When you were newly born, I was your world.
Nobody told me the stomach-tumbling enormity of you.
That I would be all you needed.
Now, baby, you are my world.
Everybody told me this would happen, but I didn’t believe them.
That this tiny body of mine could swell with such pride.
Growing
Grow wild,
Little one,
Don’t grow up.
You are small in stature
(For now)
But mighty in spirit.
Don’t limit your ambition to height.
Lift your feet from the ground,
Little bird.
Fly.
Mother’s Words
When I die, scatter my ashes far and wide,
But hold onto my words.
My ashes will be nothing.
Skin and bone.
But my words,
Well, they are my soul.
Find these scribblings.
Keep them close, they are your inheritance.
In every curve, dot and line
I have laid down a piece of myself.
Remember the sweet words, when I was soft, the most.
These will keep you warm at night.
As for the hard ones, forget them until you need them.
Remember these when you must be a warrior – they will give you strength.
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Three Poems by Sara Turner appears in the Mothership Writers anthology Dispatches from New Motherhood. All 50 pieces from the book will be published here over the year to come, creating an online library of what it really means – right here, right now – to be a new mother.