How Have I Missed This?

 Tucson Birth & Women's Health Center

I found this on the Austin Area Birth Center site  It is a beautiful birth center and Austin is very lucky to have it.  Having been immersed in birth all these years, I'm amazed that I have never heard this poem before.  I received a wonderful, touching note from a couple whose birth I was fortunate enough to attend and it again reinforced that I am so lucky to be able to do what I do.  And this poem says it all.

A Poem: Being Born is Important

Being Born Is Important

Being born is important
You who have stood at the bedposts
and seen a mother on her high harvest day,
the day of the most golden of harvest moons for her.

You who have seen the new wet child
dried behind the ears,
swaddled in soft fresh garments,
pursing its lips and sending a groping mouth
toward the nipples where white milk is ready~

You who have seen this love’s payday
of wild toil and sweet agonizing~

You know being born is important.
You know nothing else was ever so important to you.
You understand the payday of love is so old,
So involved, so traced with the circles of the moon,
So cunning with the secrets of the salts of the blood~
It must be older than the moon, older than the salt.

~Carl Sandburg