Nursing for World Peace

My heart is heavy tonight, as I sort out the thought of a mama somewhere trying to nurse her baby while fearing another drone attack that won't get any press. My heart is heavy tonight, as I think back to eight years of my nine year old's life, living in a country on offense against the world. My heart is heavy tonight, as my hope for change is diminished with the thought of continued attacks. And my heart is heavy tonight, as I wonder what to do next.

I was reading an early nineties edition of Mothering Magazine a few weeks back, and it is eerily similar to today's rhetoric. Article upon article that describes what real health care reform will look like, discussion on the politics of breastfeeding, and then this poem, which just struck a chord with me, and pretty much sums up what I felt nursing my baby girl to sleep tonight...

Nursing for World Peace

"A host of sensitive issues

hover around my house.

It is raining on ocean gray desert.

I sit by the fire nursing my baby.

Her hands make peace at my breast

and her brow has the fierce concentration of prayer. Milk darkens my blue robe.

I wrap her in white crochet

made by my Aunt Ethel.

Events not of my making go on

in a world a TV set away.

Smoke from my fire rises, lost

in low clouds. This life right now

is camouflaged by angels.

The baby sings her nursing song,

the song I wish I could save

and mail to Congress. I croon back

lullaby, the national anthem of calm.

I kiss her with my own mother's kiss.

Her smell is of my milk

bonded to me by my scent.

The best I can give, I give.

Her gift to me is peace

the mother of all angels."

-Joan Logghe (Mothering/Summer 1991)