Peace Is A Woman And A Mother
By Ada Ahroni
How do you know peace is a woman?
I know, for I met her yesterday
on my winding way to the Wold's fare.
She had such a sorrowful face
just like a golden flower faded
before her prime.
I asked her why she was so sad?
She told me her baby was killed in Auschwitz,
her daughter in Hiroshima, and her sons in Vietnam,
Ireland, Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, Rwanda,
Bosnia, Kosovo and Chechnya...
All the rest of her children, she said,
are on the nuclear black list of the dead,
all the rest, unless the whole world understands -
that peace is a woman.
A thousand candles then lit
in her starry eyes, and I saw cherubim
bearing a moonlit message:
Peace is indeed a pregnant woman -
Peace is a mother
As we read, the memories of birthing my own daughter filled my heart and threatened to bring tears to my eyes. At age 37 I was quite surprised to find myself with child, a very pleasant but unexpected surprise. I located midwives to help me through the prenatal, delivery and postpartum experience. I was determined to have a natural home birth, using the water tub for pain management. Some have called me a stubborn woman, while those more generous have labeled me tenacious. This quality has served me well in many circumstances and I've only questioned it once, childbirth was the moment. After 14 hours of laboring my baby girl emerged from the water, but there was a problem, she wasn't breathing. For the briefest moment I held her, calling to her by her name, "Alexa Rose, please breathe, please breathe for Mommy". I could hear the panic rising in my shaky voice. Still connected by the umbilical cord the midwives and their assistant hurried us to the bed and the midwives went to work on little Alexa. With each tick of the second hand a new fuse lit in my heart, threatening to demolish all that I was if that beautiful light had gone out. But at last a cry emerged and they brought her to my arms and we, mother and child, mixed our tears together as I choked out a song to her, for the first time face to face.
