“I have gained a male child with the help of the LORD”
Photo credit: Pablo Gonzalez Vargas http://mrg.bz/PNvVWc
–Genesis 4:1 (JPS translation)
Here’s a poem for Parashat B’reishit, and for our neighbors, who recently welcomed a new son (their third!).
Eve
1.
When my body forced the child out
I drew him into my arms and felt my warmth
cooling from him, and his own beginning;
and the child looked at me and I was pierced
by his look:
it was pure and not amazed,
it was naked, it was perfectly intent,
and I thought: We are still loved,
we must be loved still;
and I thought I knew what He knew when,
the world begun, He spoke and heard
a small, new answering sound.
2.
But I have never seen creation.
Only what is created.
Did not hear the first sound
of the answering voice.
I have never seen destruction;
only what is destroyed, forced
out of itself, into ash, into rubble;
Into the body lying lifeless,
sight fled from the eyes,
strength fled from the hand.
