The Process
There is the notion, the urging.
The first spilling, the self-congratulatory
Commencement ceremony for
The process.
Then there is the first short-pause,
a quick-freeze hibernation. Then,
The bubbling,
The querying, the special fear,
What have I started?
Where is it taking me,
Am I properly undressed for doing
T he process?
A new vocabulary,
an arm extended, but distended,
Words are all angled puzzled,
Capable of unity, but first,
Unshaped but swollen,
By the process.
Hatching, head-aching,
words arrive rushed, but disordered,
Confused by the process.
{The exception has it own character.
One kingly, run-on sentence birthed,
After silent labor, a full poem, fully dilated,
A shocking head of hair, full developed,
So fast does "it" fall onto the paper
The obstetrician arrives too late
To process.}
The exception, exceptional.
The normal, normative.
Twenty four hours of labor,
False starts, much screaming,
Painful joys, hardly seamless,
This process.
Distractions the enemy,
Compulsion the master,
As you choreograph the work,
In loving servitude to
The process.
You the doctor, insert probes,
Looking for the tumors, the out of ordinary,
For normal flesh is not of interest as part of
The process.
Finally, you do exhale,
With unique the pleasure, of the longest sweetest
Female ******.
The breathing less labored,
Tho whole, sensing a diminish-meant to convey
That completion is the end of part of you,
The near-end of the continuum, lessened but continuing
The process.
Inspired by the Gallim Dance Company, performing at the Guggenheim's Works and Process series.
FYI, the ob-gyn missed delivering both my children, cause they emerged in under 1 hour, and she lived about 3 blocks away from the hospital