Just Before She's Born

Before we are born, we have knowledge of everything but upon our birth, an angel slap us and all our knowledge vanishes.    
—(Midrash)

The angel slaps her in the face and she forgets
everything she knows.
She gives up all her lives,
dark ends, the world begins
and forever comes to haunt.

Before the unlived instant
disappears and the sky cracks
open, she'll live an island moment
in turquoise innocence.

Before the hours move like secrets
in the night-blooming sky,
she'll lie in her skin of calm
dreaming emptiness
and the only pulse is hers.

Until voices ride the crest of sound
and sun slices wide
the flesh of air,
she rests in a world so still
as if another world sleeps within.

This instant, this now,
this day of many nights
is cool as the mouth of spring
and this singular moment
emptied of all memories.

When the wind flashes signals,
she hears the shape of tones
sweeping across cadences of time,
distant thunder
and the rasp of now.

 

© Ruth Daigon