Poem for Soul’s Autumn & Winter

September 27, 2022September 27, 2022 Sierra V. FedorkoLeave a comment

HERE LIES

O let strong oaks be spindles!
Let gardens be dormant.
Let wildflowers wonder when.
Let frost have a jab at winning.
I am not lost in the waiting!
I’ll sit in the last of the flowers.
I’ll get wrapped in damp cold
like small seeds in
darkness.
I’ll count all the storms that bring
new spring
without longing
for new life
on my terms.
I’ll wait, wait, wait!
A graveyard
of frost and old leaves,
but never a graveyard
of lost things.
I’m a gravestone that can’t
be made.
(and how it has been tried!)
instead my souls says,
without epitaph and all confidence,
“herein lies Hope!”

-S.V.F.

The photo below was taken the summer before we found out we were pregnant November 2019. At this point (almost 3 years of infertility), I was finally awake to life. I still experienced hard nights, that gut empty feeling, but I was ALIVE to life. God’s doing in every possible way.

The day before I found out I was pregnant with Shasta, a leaf fell on my head and I experienced so much joy in just that simple thing. It was a tangible sign of my soul healing. The next morning I was laughing in the bathroom with a positive pregnancy test.

And that was the second miracle.❤

My Son’s Laughter-Filled Birth

My Daughter’s Powerful Birth

Why I’m Still Writing About Infertility

Poetry

Limping Wings// A Poem for Staying in Your Life

September 15, 2022 Sierra V. FedorkoLeave a comment

I had no idea I’d get a rose this big when my little garden began alongside my limping heart on Mother’s Day 2018. It just took about four years to bloom this big, but less than that for me to lift my head and love the life I had.

My encouragement to you is STAY.

Stay in your life. Stay in your days. Stay in your walk with God. It may not turn out the way you wanted it to initially, but in the staying, there will be good, radiance, comfort, stunning gifts and blessings from God.

And you will be blown away by it.

Limping Wings, Trying

I see you
with your
limping wings,
trying to smell
the roses,
catching yourself
on thorns
instead.lift your head
and breathe.
you’re in the garden
aren’t you?
all in
and halfway there!go on, try again.
there’s no rushing
this kind of
life.
you fell
hard
somewhere
good.

-S.V.F.

motherhood · Poetry

It’s Never Going to Be Pastels for Us

September 13, 2022 Sierra V. Fedorko1 Comment

I can’t really imagine a world where my husband and I pose in pretty neutrals with our squishy baby all cuddled with us perfectly.

My favorite newborn photos to have are the selfies, the real-life snaps, reality without swaths of pastel.

I love having blurry renditions of cuddles, togetherness, and quiet hospital videos I make myself take because I know I’ll regret it if I don’t! (And I wish I had more.) The lack of fanfare matches the intimacy of the season and I love that. Life. Us experiencing it. Us in love. Us growing. Us without pastels.

The season after Shasta was born had us wrapped in a beautiful cocoon. I struggled hard and there’s no denying that, but I also remember how much honest-to-goodness magic bubbled from that first year with Shasta. I’m almost halfway to a year with Heidi and it’s been far less cocoon like. But as a woman I have grown. I am emerging. And I am deeper in my motherhood. The bright, vibrant, layered reality has replaced the magic. Of course, magic moments to come, but it’s a reality now that feels full and big and so vibrant with life.

When I was thinking of our newborn//infant season with our radiant Heidi, this poem practically wrote itself. And it matches how we’ve chosen to document the early days with a newborn. No pastels. Never pastels. But extraordinary and very real beauty nonetheless.

GROWING PAINS (on marriage, parenthood, life❤)

between arguments,
long tiring
nights,
long lasting
infant cries,
there were lows
weren’t there?
but still the roses
grew,
and how the sunflowers
bloomed,
and baby smiled too.
grins, first laughs,
and bright-eyed coos,
forgiveness was
our Marriage
Song,
and a second round
of Morning Glories
burst out
in a day
or two.
I think they call
this
growing pains,
I think they call
this
Love.

-S.V.F.

motherhood · Poetry

Forget Me Not (poem for night feedings)

August 17, 2022September 1, 2022 Sierra V. FedorkoLeave a comment

photo from the first few weeks earthside with Heidi.❤ April 2022

Forget Me Not

to memorize the feel of you
in my arms
I feel is impossible.
I won’t remember this,
how sweet it is
past midnight,
the rise and fall,
the gentle swaying,
over where you sleep.
I’ll put you down
soon,
not yet.

I want to remember this,
the feel of you
against my chest.
how all my love is
communicated,
and uncomplicated
and you know
how deep it goes. . .
past midnight,
the rise and fall,
the gentle swaying
however long you need,
longer.

and if I can’t remember
this,
I hope you know
that as you grow
I have memorized
you
the way
only a mother
can.

and if I can’t remember
this,
how sweet it is
past midnight,
I’ll look at you
bright flush of youth,
all grown up,
and know
I’ve not missed
anything at
all.

and if I can’t
remember
exactly how it feels
the feel of you in my arms,
I’ve loved trying to
memorize,
loved this mother’s life
trying to freeze time,
knowing it has the
upper hand.
who thought clocks were
a good idea?
but that same clock
and its upper hand
gives some acquiesce.
in the quiet, here we are
us nudged slow
past midnight,
everything is still
except-

how we sway,
and rise and fall,
how sweet all this is.
I kiss you softly,
lay you down.
I smile, smile, sigh.
clock ticks again with its
upper hand,
but I have two arms too,
and they aren’t bound
by hours.
so there are things
a mother
will not ever
forget,
remember them
or not.