Ravine

Rumour has it that Ernest Hemingway was given the challenge of writing a story in no more than six words. Here is the reported result:

For sale: baby shoes, never used.

This brought a lot of emotion and thoughts to my mind when I read it. It’s really simple, yet there so much imagery in it and it is profound. Maybe I am just biased because I’ve been through a miscarriage. Still, a lot of 10-year-old memories came rushing back.

The experience really affected me, but I reacted differently than Mary did. I ended up expressing my thoughts and emotions in writing. I wrote an open letter to our unborn son and two poems. You can read the letter here (it’s too long to include, but I’ve included the two poems below.

Dreams Are Small

In land of stars the blackness rules and light is slave to dark.
A land where stars are forced to stay where night has e’er them parked.
The stars are small, their skies are broad, the space above us vast,
Yet we on earth are small as sand and brittle as the glass.

Our hopes and dreams are big to us, and joy inside us felt
When we wish upon them much and look to them for help.
But dreams get broke and hopes do shatter and wishes don’t come true.
They’re all br’ttle, ‘cuz they’re all small when they’re looked in view.

Victoria Day

My mind was clear as I think back to a still morn in May.
A darkened morn it was to me, to others, a hol’day.
The day was new and touched by dew. Not a sound upon the ear.
A mother’s voice, a trembling hand awoke me to my fears;

Fears I had the day before, and e’en throughout the week,
And now they woke me from my sleep and wouldn’t let me speak.
Just thrice the bell had struck that morn, my worstest fears come true.
The love of two fin’lly made three, but now the three was two.

If our baby had been born, he would have been ten next month. He would have already been baptised and would quickly be approaching a teenagehood.

Mary and I don’t talk about him much anymore. Our lives are busy and three other children occupy large parts of our brains. We do think about him from time to time, but we rarely discuss him.

I miss what could have been.