Poetry Month 2023 Poem-A-Day Post #21: “Being Human”

April is #NationalPoetryMonth and I am posting a Poem-A-Day. Today’s post is a poem I wrote this past winter.

Being Human

To Be Human is to be made of
ocean, star dust, and dirt
To be human means living
with natal memory
of the razor’s edge,
with anticipation of death.
To be human is to be
built to suffer and
grow, yearn and
despair.

I am cells dividing and
muscles that regenerate while I sleep.
I am lungs with
spider web veins moving
oxygen from brain
maze to toe nails.
I am thoughts turning
to poems and grief
creating salt water
stories of love, loss,
and gratitude.

I am determined legs and
arms that instinctively
reach out to balance me.
I am a uterus now resting
from 4 decades of bloodletting
and 3 babies’ beginnings.
I am a birth canal with the
strength to move a human
from breathing water to
air.

I am a conscience that stirs
a mysterious impulse and
that revels in song
and shared dreams.
I am awake another day
with tender tendency
to feel the pain
to believe promises I struggle to
imagine.


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