Lord--I call to you.
As a mother.
As the womb and the nest.
As the source, the bread.
I carry them inside of me.
I feel them move and call.
They drink from my lungs, my heart.
They fill me so I cannot walk.
I bear the endless ache of birth,
The trembling and the clenching, the emptiness.
Why do you make me love
When I cannot protect,
When they will be taken, each one
Filled with my blood
With my milk
With the air I have breathed into them?
I am old but I know the smell and the call
Of every child I have ever had.
I hear them when my eyes are closed
I see them when I wake during the night.
Do they dream of me as I dream of them?
I beg of you, Lord,
Where are my children?
What have you done with my children?

© 1995 by Bruce Plotkin

Bruce Plotkin is an attorney and a writer of poetry and fiction. He lives in Seattle with his wife, Valorie.