This poem arrived after a beautiful spring walk with a friend of mine. Everything smelt fresh and shiny and new. We came upon a cow and her calf who had literally just arrived into this world and so the image stayed with me. I often read poems in my classes; this one is an invitation to reflect on your own little germinating seeds of change and opportunity. You can read or listen to it below. (Maori words – ‘Whenua’, pronounced ‘Fenua’ means ‘of the land’ AND ‘placenta’. ‘Kereru’ are big beautiful wood pigeons.)
Spring Births
On the side of the gravel road
A patch of bloody earth
marks the spot
where a sacred cow
has landed from her mother’s womb.
From Whenua to Whenua;
her sticky jet black coat still wet
and her umbilical cord only just severed
she hangs
in a suspended miracle
as she tries to find her feet
on the dappled winter grass
her legs splayed and shaky
searching for balance
to take her first four legged steps.
Two Kereru dance with joy in the
still bare branches above her.
I slow down to take it all in
feeling my own potential
for wonder
and for standing on my own two feet
in the plans that have been stowed
away in an unknown shadow of myself.
But this early Spring
has helped me to remember who I am
and with the green tips of the bulbs
pushing away the soil
the beginnings
of my new life
germinate.
Am I ready?
by Sam Loe
Listen to my delivery here: