Being born is important

Being born is important

You who have stood at the bedposts

and seen a mother on her high harvest day,

the day of the most golden of harvest moons for her.

You who have seen the new wet child

dried behind the ears,

swaddled in soft fresh garments,

pursing its lips and sending a groping mouth

toward the nipples where white milk is ready~

You who have seen this love’s payday

of wild toil and sweet agonizing~

You know being born is important.

You know nothing else was ever so important to you.

You understand the payday of love is so old,

So involved, so traced with the circles of the moon,

So cunning with the secrets of the salts of the blood~

It must be older than the moon, older than the salt.

~Carl Sandburg