Only a woman
Who could not have children
Would understand:
The monthly (less now) rhythm
Of hope and disappointment:
Stares in the street,
And – even worse –
The pity in young relatives’ eyes
As they decided
How to break their happy news;
Trying to hold on
To my hope and trust in God
When everything in me
Questioned “Why?”
At first I could not quite believe it.
Must be my age, I thought,
The dwindling of fertility,
not its fulfilment.
And so I waited, seeing no-one
Until my slowly growing belly
And the kicks –
Flutters at first then more definite -
Allowed me to believe at last.
And then her visit:
And that extraordinary moment
When I realised
God had been at work
In more ways than I knew
And – just for a moment –
My own joy was eclipsed
By the glimpsing
of a plan of God
far bigger
than I ever could have imagined.
Poem by Jeannie Kendall, reproduced with permission