Poppy – For all mothers everywhere

By Kim Aasland (May 2021)

This is Poppy, the hummingbird that nested on our front porch in spring 2021. I wrote this for her when i thought her chicks hadn’t made it. Miraculously, I was wrong, which brought a resurrection joy to me.

We all come from inside a woman.
That’s the only way.
Someone was generous enough to house us inside her for 9 months
All our limbs and blood and brains and waste
Full of dreams and hopes for our life as well as hers.
And then having ushered us into the world, she continued to feed us, house us, and take care of our waste.
And she loved us. Not perfectly, because she is human, but God-like in her provision of our all in all.

For us she bled
For us she agonized
For us she cried

Her power is so awe-inspiring that something rises in the world to put woman down, to belittle her and use her.
And yet she loves. Not perfectly, because she is human, too.

Poppy sits with her chicks
They didn’t make it
But she sits with them anyway
She is bearing witness to their life.

For those of us with children who didn’t make it
We bear witness to their lives.
For those of us whose children walk on this earth, our desires for their well-being never cease.

To all mothers we say thank you.
Thank you for the blood, and the tears and the exhaustion. You carry the human race forward
And in carrying us you carry the image of God.