Seven pounds
Eleven ounces
Of beating heart fleeting breath
Packed deep in lungs
Too small to fathom world
Brought close so fast
To chest of mother
To gentle pat on back from dad
The beginning of being known
A scary thing to grasp
To reach for love attention screaming crying wanting
Needing touch
I was a baby once
I was a toddler once
Hand to hold as we head outside
To park to play the day away
So young but old
Enough to know I needed help along the way
I couldn’t enter space unknown
A playscape towering and big
Always loud red and blue
Colored slides and swings
So full of other lives running wild
Crashing into my existence
Scary realizing understanding
They didn’t know me
Could they be trusted?
I was a toddler once
I was a kindergartner once
First day of class
Small backpack with a couple pencils
Spiral notebook and a snack
All zipped up and on my back
Another hand to hold this time
Maybe a friend as old as I
We colored and wondered
At when we’d get to go outside
To run around and try to be a little more
Noticed understood standing calling kids to play with me
I was a kindergartner once
I was a middle schooler
High schooler
College student
Once—
Twice three times four times over
Gave my hand over
To hold
I sought bought tried to be understood
Seen heard known
A lot of first days and hard spaces
To enter into
What is it—
About being known that makes me long for it
Drawn in close enough
Brought close to chest
A gentle hand against my back I rest
When I am known
Shoes untying lying pillow beneath my head
Blanket across me wrapping warming my skin
Will you see more all of me?
Take hold of even the bad things
Looking hoping past my iniquities
I’ve taken different hands to hold
Some have let me go
Let me down
Told me no
I fear it may be better to be left unseen alone afraid
But more afraid to try again to be known again
To be held close again
To be noticed when
I don’t feel good enough
Or that I’m doing enough
I am laying crying on side of bed
Perhaps dreading another day of rising and falling
Indefinitely attempting to undo messes I’ve made
It’s clear that all of this
Is better trapped locked stored away in a box
Labeled “unknown” to those in my life
Labeled “kinda known”
Labeled “known when things are working out”
“Panning playing turning out
As I thought they would”
I was interrupted once
By a voice that said “stop”
“Stop running trying flying through the days
Turning them as if they’re pages
To be skimmed”
I was told
“There is not a place you can run to hide
There is no space in your life
That I will not enter into
Pressing drawing leaning in close to you
May it be mountainside
Cave carved from rock
Headphones closing you inside mind
Cold and barren where thoughts reside
The job that calls you back to cubicle day and night
The series you binge to make you feel alright
There is not a place you can run to hide
Be it under moonlight
Or in the heat of daylight
When tears become your eyesight
When friends depart from your side
In the very moment when you feel the least known
Let it be there that my Spirit meets with you
I am with you
Knowing you is what I choose to do
“You were a baby once
A kindergartner once
A middle school, high school, college student once
You’ll be a mother, father, daughter, son
Co-worker, friend, boss
Grandmother, grandfather, mentor, listener
And I know those days
Have known those days
Since before you were even able
To run hide try again to be known
Reach again
For a hand to hold
“I have searched you and known you
"Let it be said of you
You thought once
That you were unknown
But behold my child
Today you walk as fearfully wonderfully created
And intimately closely understood seen heard
And I will lead you
In the way everlasting”
Listen to this spoken word live by following the link. Poem starts at 18:10.
Comments