Poem: We Wait by Maureen Ash

We Wait 

My sister’s unborn granchild balks
at the gate, won’t be born just yet
as we stand with our arms out, offering
like oats and apples
the sweetly padded landing of our quilts, knitted caps,
flannel blankets.  Maybe the baby knows
what dark halter awaits, the creaking leather harness,
hate’s ponderous load on the earth
and it’s true, we all haul it, I wish
it were not so.  Look now, though, a herd
of us waiting, the sun a gold apple, oats buttered
onto the fields.  There’s love too is what I am saying,
that stout pony pulling cartloads of light
up hope’s dim, tracked shaft.  And beauty–see with me baby
the oriole smacking his sweetened beak at our feeder,
the bees’ flexed, six-parted legs as they float, flower to flower,
those pink and blue clouds striping evening’s curved wall.
We’ll always wait at the gates for you, but come
soon, and safely, through this one and enter forever
the wide, bedded stalls of our hearts.

Maureen Ash