The brutal plough
This is the poem I mentioned in response to Lauren Bravo’s article, ’Nobody talks about the long tail of miscarriage’ in her Substack, Nobody Wanted This:
Here’s my comment on her post:
‘Miscarriage is a brutal plough that turns over the lives of individuals and families. My mother had two miscarriages after I was born, two baby sisters. I was about three years old when I was woken by noises from the landing outside my bedroom. Investigating, I found a bucket outside my parent’s bedroom. In it was a bloody thing. Coming from their room my father bellowed me back to my own. I’ve wondered if lodged deep in my psyche was the suspicion that my parents were murderers.1
This incident only revealed itself to me in later life when writing a sonnet. A more experienced poet told me this wasn’t a fitting subject for a sonnet. I finished my sonnet. I’ll post it next week on my ‘New and selected’ section of A Patch of Sky patchofsky.substack.com
My wife also experienced the trauma of two miscarriages before our son was born.’
Jeremy Wikely was kind enough to respond, giving a link to Sandeep Parmar’s essay in Poetry Magazine, ‘An Uncommon Language: On the necessity—and difficulty—of describing miscarriages’.
The poem – Awakening
When I found the poem again, I realised that it isn’t in fact a sonnet. It was a draft on the way to becoming a sonnet, but I remember being so put off by the comments of the ‘more expereinced poet’ that it’s remained a draft, a half-formed thing.
But then, perhaps that is strangely appropriate given the subject matter.
Here’s the poem;
AWAKENING Sleepy from the bedroom, nearly three, caught in the landing light, come to explore the noise, (someone having fun?), pyjamaed in surprise. His mother didn't see him as she put the bucket out. He thought of spades, sand and sea, though part feared mopping up a mess; but not the bloody mass he found crouched inside the bucket with shut eyes. A red child who didn't move, hurt by his mummy or his daddy, at whose shout of his little name he turned and turned to ice.
Background
The poem emerged after psychotherapy when I was seeing my therapist, Arna Blum, twice a week.
After one session with her in January 1989, I wrote a note to myself, which I’ve added to my Journal section of A Patch of Sky. Take a look…
This isn’t a created memory. I have a clear recollection of the incident.
