Another Race Poem by Patti Masterman

The gates are opening, and there's the starter pistol:
The fetal heart begins pumping, moving the vaporous blood along;
Still more gas than fluid, around it's newly formed silo of vessels.

The fetal body is corralled by the uterus, the placenta, and it's tether
Of maternal blood vessels, meanwhile the fetus has grown-
And opens one eye, though perhaps seeing nothing yet
In the eternal twilight of the womb.
The brain has many delicate wiring operations to complete
And even then vision is not assured, so mysterious, so complex
It's twisting, turning route through the tangled streets of the nervous membranes.

This race is half over now, and soon the fetus turns around, head down
To face the next starting gate; he entered months ago,
But will soon grow too large to be able to turn at all.

He sucks his thumb, exercising the nursing reflexes,
His eyes move often while sleeping, perhaps only muscle twitches;
Perhaps dreams of the other world that he came from
In these end-to-end cat naps in utero.

One day soon, the water of ocean will all drain away
And the top of his head will begin to put pressure on the mother's body,
Until it begins labor to expel him. It's the most dangerous time of all;
The end of the racetrack is coming into sight, and will be heralded
By a glorious, intense light; one that ushers us in, blinking blinded eyes,
Overcome with the monstrous size of this new world at large,

And only now, the real race begins, the previous one
Was merely a warm-up; and the soul slips in on the intake breath,
And soul opens up new eyes, blinking at the mysterious surroundings:
And something is born that will never come this way again-
And this is how the emptiness fills itself up, again and again, in this way.

Now he turns toward those same voices that were outside,
The ones he heard in his nine-month's journey in the mother sea;
The familiarity that can help anchor him in this new dimension,
And the harbor will continue rocking him safely, on the outside.

Even though another race has already begun,
And he will have to struggle to keep up,
But will never be all alone in his struggles.

He realizes now that even when he seemed to be solitary, all alone
In his watery nursery, there was always another heart
Just inches away, prolonging his life, every second of every day.

Miracles still happen and do, every day in this wondrous world of worlds.