Friday, January 3, 2020

You Cannot Now but Be Afraid

January 4, 2020

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is pregnancy and childbirth, in honor of the birth of a new year.

I welcome comments on my poems at http://nicholasgordon.blogspot.com .

A poem from an unmarried teenage mother to the father of the child still in her womb:

You cannot now but be afraid
Of all that you might lose,
And curse the granite circumstance
That forces you to choose.

You are too young, a child yourself,
As I am, too, and yet
There is a child between us, whom
We cannot just forget.

This child - our child - has no one else
To be its only father.
Others may be guardians,
But you can be no other.

This fact will not relent, though battered
Hard by bitter tears.
Time moves only forward as
Our yearnings turn to years.

And everything we've wanted turns
To what we must accept,
And what we'd least relinquish comes
From what we most regret.

I do not ask to live with you
Or ever be your wife;
Only that you share the gift
And burden of a life

That waits upon your willing love
To greet its upturned face
That it might twist your heart with joy
And unimagined grace.

© by Nicholas Gordon

If you enjoyed this poem, please like, comment on, or share it so that it might be seen and enjoyed by others. To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/youcan.html. For more poems about teenage pregnancy, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/teenagepregnancypoems.html .

This week’s theme: Pregnancy and Childbirth
1/4: You Cannot Now but Be Afraid

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