The Slow Way Home

She leaves the women in her husband’s house 
and makes a slow way home 
to her own mother, to friends singing 
as they bring sweet butter 
for the first month, molasses 
for the second, radish, the third. 
Nine kinds of giftgiving 
fill full the life cycle, 
and then singing sisters 
bracelet her bare arms, 
            first a circle of healing ram, 
            then elephant hair to match her task 
            and bangles of green glass 
            because she is fragile and glad. 

Taking to themselves a paste 
of rice and clarified butter, 
the hands of women rub 
in slow circles the tight flesh 
rising with what will yet be. 

At the midwife’s nod, water 
is heated, oil warmed, 
and she is settled into a bed 
rounded out from white sand. 

But like Parvati, Devi, like all women
come home 
she spreads her legs when the waters
will not be stayed, shapes sand new
each time the pains take hold.
Sinking to places she must go alone,
she rises, revived finally 
by the high brine smell of blood,
by the infant held high, its cry
the cry of the mother birthing herself
                                                again 
                                                and again.