Being Born Is Important - A Poem by Carl Sandburg

This is the last post, for now, on Birth in the United States so I wanted to close with this poem that seems to capture so much of birth with bedposts.  On Monday morning, I am leaving for LaGonave, Haiti and will begin to write about my experiences there.  I have loved visiting places in my country and trying to see it throughout the perspective of birth.

Carl Sandburg

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 the circles of the moon,

So cunning with the secrets of the salts of the blood

It must be older than the moon, older than the salt.