About…

childbirth .

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Karen Bookguilder is intended to be a collection of poems 60 poems expressly for the Book Guild by Mike Burr - the themes being dictated by or about its published artisans .

Birth

a wife of beauty is a thing to hold
her name was Gaea, mortal goddess of the earth
our love was coiled
as snakes coil
in that inseparable writhing mass
and so a child formed in genesis
and underneath the apple tree
amid the sweat and blood of brood and labour
her fragile mother laboured day on night
yet that child would not release the womb
tragic was the weakness of that mortal goddess
slowly ebbed the tide of life
with a knife i took the corpse
and exercised the craft of husbandry
and so the child was freed and by blood a miracle survived
a baby girl with caustic eyes that in their houses said
'beware the devil lives within'
so much pain and so much joy invested in a name
her name was Eve

Sources…

Folk lore and partly biblical legend

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