Rosarium 

The trainee midwife said, ‘here is your little green man’.
And with the doctor and the 
midwives, he and me were wheeled away from delivery room 7 to maternity room 8
   Enthroned, charioted, in magnificent raimented procession. 

When the child was born the sky was a blaze of gold 
                                                and still we enter here
                               into a dazzling geometry of light
                                                     warm as wigwams
On the printed veils of vision lye, in fluttering layers,
the milk white cot, the ice cream pink bed, and flowers 
                              – irises, ‘who painted them?’ said my sister, 
   tying the red ribbon around the jug. And a giant white lily with the scent of honeysuckle 
- And mucky daisies with two big sweet smelling carnations stuck in - my favourite then 
because you were so pleased that you had bought them  
and still had enough money left for tobacco,
and even though I thought carnations were bad luck for anything but funerals.

But when the daisies were dead, they stayed fresh and new like this smooth cool bed.
‘It will be sad and it will be hard, but you’ll survive’ – I thought that’s what they meant.

Outside the window, hospital buildings with green gable ends.
Earth works. 
Fir trees, black now in early spring rain.
The distant road and road roar. 
- I like to watch the cars go by, or, I should say 
I like to let my eyes rest there, where all the people are going on into their lives,
as the sky changes into a blue-grey transparent sea,
and near to me, upon the floating cushions of light 
reclines the new born babe. 
 
And slowly the evening came, and the sun and the moon were in the sky together,
and the sun set and the moon set
and we slept. 

Like Papuans who judge the beauty of a costume by the shapes of its shadows.
Like a tattooed woman who travels to a far away land where she is treated as a queen.