I read this in the latest issue of “Listen” – the newsletter for Spiritual Companions and it was so beautiful and profound I had to pass it on. It is directed toward female-bodied folx, but I can absolutely find a way that it relates to me in my current male body as well.
Nocturn
by Liza Hyatt
In the dark, middle of night, in the deep middle of the middle of life, may you wake, feeling the familiar fear, and suddenly realize you are in the midst of slowly, painfully, giving birth, and have, for years, been in labor, losing, growing,
and may you mutter, “Midwife,” in confusion turning to prayer, begging the dark to help you, and hear the poetry, midwife, midlife, midlife, midwife,
and be calmed by this, letting Midlife do her work,
attending the birthing chamber where who you were, that too-tight, tight-skinned, tightly clothed, tightly wound young woman, has been opened out, spreading wide, like a snake-skin, like a vulva, from which is emerging that wild, white haired, loose and expansive, grinning and playful old woman, who must be your Soul.
LIZA HYATT is a poet whose books include Once, There Was a Canal (Chatter House Press, 2017), The Mother Poems (Chatter House Press, 2014), Under My Skin, (WordTech Editions, 2012). Liza is an art therapist in Indianapolis. She is currently a student in the Spiritual Guidance Training Institute. You can contact her at lizahyatt@gmail.com