I get to watch a baby being born.
He tells me I am holding too tightly.
The birth of the new is the old transformed.
The baby flops out, the egg sack is torn.
Babies are meant to be held, but lightly.
Hold them, and love them, and pass them well formed.
Mother cats purr as their kittens are born.
Paring the joy with the pain sublimely.
They comfort themselves as the change is borne.
What new thing in me is coming to form?
To hold, to love, and pass along brightly?
Can I comfort myself as I transform?
It all dissolves and arises newborn.
Just as night turns to day divinely,
Cycles in nature show change is the norm.
Something new in me is coming to form.
This thing is meant to be held, but lightly.
Can I comfort myself as the change is borne?
The birth of the new is the old transformed.
SO excited to have my poem – Transformation – published on page 17 of the current issue of The Rose in The World Magazine! Dreams of Spring 2022-2023.
As part of my Dream Work Training at the Haden Institute, I had two sessions with Cathy Smith Bowers, poet laureate for North Carolina (2012-2012). I very much appreciated her guidance.
The poem is a villanelle, a nineteen-line poem consisting of a very specific rhyming scheme
aba aba aba aba aba aba abaa
The first and the third lines in the first stanza are repeated in alternating order throughout the poem, and appear together in the last couplet (last two lines)
One of the most famous Villanelle is “Do not go Gentle into that Good Night” by Dylan.
I used a dream snippet as my inspiration.
Image by Bess Hamiti from Pixabay