Last night Christmas Eve I was looking at an old book about baby massage, in which the author Frederick Leboyer ∗ speaks movingly about the separation anxiety that ensues after birth, with the baby no longer contained by the mother’s firm hold.
I went downstairs this morning to write something that had come out of dreams.
When I pulled back the curtain I saw through rapid turbulent clouds Ithe morning moon like a sloping (
Suddenly a poem came:
Christmas morning
Just one glimpse of the moon
in a moody mild sky
a dawn moon, last seventh,
a thinnest toenail leaning back;
and for a waning moon
surprisingly graceful, young, and bright
like a baby’s spine resting back
against the contractions of
his mother’s womb
© Kathy McVittie 25 December 2016
∗ Frédérick Leboyer (1977) Loving hands: the traditional Indian art of baby massage. Collins, London
Postscript: Frédérick Leboyer died on 25 May 2107.
An obituary by Joanna Moorhead (The Guardian, 16 June 2017 issue) is here:
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/jun/15/frederick-leboyer-obituary
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writingpresence 
Really lovely deep sentiments here, thank you for sharing x
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Thank you Emma x
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I found this so beautiful, fragile and profound. Thank you for sharing.
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Thank you. I was very fragile when I wrote it last year, like the thin moon appeared to be, although in truth the moon is the same size and robustness all the time… A year later I can be glad to have been through a few more cycles of waxing and waning, shiny fullness and slender newness.
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