Adoro te devote

 Adoro te devote

 

 

detail: andromeda
daniel chester french

                                                                                                                                 Setting: maternity ward

Mother: in labor nearing 40 hours

Father: in the wings

Director/Pediatrician:

 

Baby: boy yet

            to arrive

 

 

Because the truth is we

invent a life for them our children where we are a

part of them right a part of their lives? where we are assigned

some defining role to star

to manage – the script is written the stage has its backdrops

 

all those props come & go they are new or recently produced

or requisitioned from another production lately or not so recently

closed.  It’s in the Script.  We think we know it

reading it off by heart, reading through the scribed

 

assignments cursived & curled

by skill, or by drawn lots or by off-stage

coughs from the pediatric director – our coach

who through the complicated labor brought us to

            (stage whispers:           shhhh, we’re losing them)

then through

 

the surgical drapes & tells us: don’t push now just

breathe backwards, breathe back to when this baby

 

happened.  It’s just

that this barrier is so                           

                        foreign & there are foreign lights & foreign sounds

and monitors with their unique noises and wires

 

and the widening is without

sensation

 

and from the gas a baby

boy is drawn out and raised above our parted

skins & we are told his name

 

before we see his face and oh he cries

he cries and cries and they take him

untouched by his mother straight

out of the room & away off stage

https://youtu.be/-DXdrY9qH74?si=FKhEJeVQjTxQIp7i