To My Friends Who are Birth Workers....This is For You

Yesterday, I enjoyed two mid afternoon conversations with two different friends. One is an old friend, a midwife who was there to "catch" my third baby. (Who is getting married in less than two weeks!) and the other is an online friend who I occasionally chat with on facebook. She is an OB nurse at a local hospital. Both are passionate about women, birthing and babies. When I came across this poem today, I thought of them and all the other amazing birth workers I am privileged to know. This is for you. 


"Being Born Is Important" 
by Carl Sandburg 

Being born is important
You who have stood at the bed posts
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 nipples where the white milk is ready.

You who have seen this love's payday
of wild toiling and sweet agonizing.
You know being born is important.

You know that nothing else was ever so important to you.
You understand that 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.