Brothers, love is a teacher, but a hard one to obtain: learning to love is hard and we pay dearly for it. It takes hard work and a long apprenticeship, for it is not just for a moment that we must learn to love, but forever.
(Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov)
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
"God's Girl"
An absolutely amazing speech given in Australia in 2008 by Gianna Jessen, the survivor of a late-term abortion. The second part of her speech is also on Youtube.
Thank you for giving us the gift of this courageous woman's words.
I will let the poet speak for me.
BEING BORN IS IMPORTANT
Being born is important. You who have stood at the bedposts and seen a mother on her high harvest day, the day of the most golden of harvest moons for her.
You who have seen the new wet child dried behind the ears, swaddled in soft fresh garments, pursing its lips and sending a groping mouth toward the nipples where white milk is ready –
You who have seen this love’s payday of wild toil and sweet agonizing –
You know being born is important. You know nothing else was ever so important to you. You understand the payday of love is so old, So involved, so traced with circles of the moon, So cunning with the secrets of the salts of the blood – It must be older than the moon, older than salt.
~ Carl Sandburg (1878-1967), American poet and writer and biographer of Lincoln
She is a very compelling speaker, indeed.
ReplyDeleteDear Pentimento,
ReplyDeleteThank you for giving us the gift of this courageous woman's words.
I will let the poet speak for me.
BEING BORN IS IMPORTANT
Being born is important.
You who have stood at the bedposts
and seen a mother on her high harvest day,
the day of the most golden of harvest moons for her.
You who have seen the new wet child
dried behind the ears,
swaddled in soft fresh garments,
pursing its lips and sending a groping mouth
toward the nipples where white milk is ready –
You who have seen this love’s payday
of wild toil and sweet agonizing –
You know being born is important.
You know nothing else was ever so important to you.
You understand the payday of love is so old,
So involved, so traced with circles of the moon,
So cunning with the secrets of the salts of the blood –
It must be older than the moon, older than salt.
~ Carl Sandburg (1878-1967), American poet and writer and biographer of Lincoln
What a stunning poem! Thank you!
ReplyDelete