“Conception, Perception” by Barbara Parker
Poetry Pause is the League of Canadian Poets’ daily poetry dispatch. Read “Conception, Perception” by Barbara Parker, part of the League’s Fresh Voices program.
Conception, Perception
By Barbara Parker
How many dreams, love
have been made
after the dance, following the to
and then the fro
first resistance
then insistence
past trying, that very last minute, after the
alarm rings, past time to get up (I canโt be late, really)
new life conceived
because of a smile
in the parking lot, before the long
uphill, before losing the trail, all that slogging
and striving, the dreaming and
grieving and yearning for
a quiet hour on a bed
of leathery mountain heather
in a summer meadow all
anemone and arnica
when yes will you yes I will yes
could become a new beginning
Dreams, love, coming to us
time and again
fully formed and borne
whether we were ready or not;
a second chance. The way babies
ride the amniotic waves
on the small curled backs
of those who crossed the ocean
before them, waiting with patient surrender
(like foxtails and fireweed)
to be welcomed by the winds
of a wild, wild world
Copyright ยฉ Barbara Parker
Barbara Parker (she/her) writes on the ancestral lands of Lษkฬสทษลษn, Songhees and Esquimalt Nations (Victoria, BC). A Banff Centre Wired Writing alumni, Barbaraโs poetry and prose has been published in Prairie Fire, Room, Island Writer, Freefall, Toward the Light and spring. As a writer, celebrant, dancer and friend she is most drawn to the intersections we negotiate at lifeโs threshold moments.
Fresh Voices is a publication and workshop program created by and for the League’s associate members, curated and edited by Erin Vance.
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