A Mother’s Hope
Hope is the only step you can take at the start.
When you wrap your newborn in yellow gingham
and wait for a sun-painted, early October day
for your first walk to the corner tree.
You tuck in her toes.
Because though she broke into the world,
she is still a seed, and your arms alone
don’t feel enough like nurtured ground.
Remembering hope in the first sight
of her heartbeat at the ultrasound.
Surrounded by a sea of empty space,
a possibility she would grow into.
A rapid pulse in the swirl of a slower one.
Now her heartbeat is still mixed with yours.
Hope is that she might not yet see shadows.
Her eyes are not yet their true color,
and her vision unfocused.
Below the tree, you hope she sees dappled sunlight.
But you sense winter’s edge in the first-leaves’
fall from the maple.
Hope is that there, you remember a stream,
today you only hear it, like birdsong from hollows
in branches. Here you send your baby to start her story,
like the bramble-arched brook,
the water hidden.
You know only how it flows in this valley,
the green things rooted alongside,
sheltering trees before the bend,
until the creek, at last, can’t be seen.
Sherry Weaver Smith writes poems inspired by her Catholic faith and the landscapes of the American West. Poems have received a Pushcart Prize nomination and a semifinalist award in the Narrative Poetry Contest (Naugatuck River Review). She is the author of The Wolf and the Shield: An Adventure with Saint Patrick. Her poems have been published in The Heron’s Nest, The Seventh Quarry, Vancouver Cherry Blossom Haiku Invitational, Panorama: The Journal of Travel, Place and Nature; and Amethyst Review.
