In Utero

Knew Stephen Colgan in 1987 when I was head cook at the SFZC City Center kitchen. He and past wife experience Elin were good friends and she had a room for a while in a place near the ZC where he had a room too. He posted this poem on Facebook. Wow. - dc

In Utero

by Stephen Colgan

sometimes
when my mother slept
I would stay awake for a while
as the wombspace settled
the swirling yellows and pinks
slowly turned to
peaceful blues and grays

the curtain of incarnation
still transparent then
slowly parted
and I gazed back
to that place, that time
before I joined her

a time before love,
before fragility, before pain
a time before time

a time of endless space
of bright spinning galaxies

it seemed so close
had I command of
those translucent fingers
I could have reached out
and touched it

I could feel
the heartbeat of the cosmos,
and stardust
swirled in my veins

of course
I felt a yearning
to return
to shrug off flesh
and slip back
into the Light

but I was already bound
to my body, to my mother
her sorrow and her laughter

the gravity of love
the tug of attachment
the tidal pull of karma
held me in place
as I turned my back
on the infinite
and closed my eyes
to merge with my mother
in sleep