Tuesday Poem: For Fathers of Girls by Stephen Dunn

Having just been present at the birth of my grand-daughter, feeling aggrieved that her father was denied the right by British immigration, birth has been on my mind.  There aren't many poems about birth from the father's point of view.  And then I stumbled on this poem by Stephen Dunn at Garrison Keiller's Writers' Almanac. 

For Fathers of Girls by Stephen Dunn

for Susanne

When sperm leaves us
and we cockadoodledo
and our wives rise like morning

the children we start
are insignificant as bullets
that get lodged, say,

in a field somewhere
in the midwest.
If we are thinking then

it is probably of sleep
or the potency of rest, or
the one—hand catch we made

long ago at the peak of our lives.
Later, though, in a dream
we may imagine something in the womb

of our heads, neither boy nor girl,
nothing quite so simple . . . . .

To read more please click on this link  
Writers' Almanac - For Fathers of Girls  Copyright Stephen Dunn

And of course, there's the ultimate birth poem by Sharon Olds - The Language of the Brag.....Fabulous!!