Waiting

The days are filled with waiting.
What is inevitable stands in the wings
For the revealing limelight to light the stage.
A time too full of waiting to make any other plan.
Time is intensified.

Each hour is pregnant with potential
But each in turn closes unrealised.
The unused hours pile up into days,
And all that exists is this event that
Still does not exist.

No conversation that is not filled
With this present absence of future presence
Time holds its breath, steps cautiously.
The unknown and certain future is poised
Ready for flight.

For me this is a time of waiting in my work and, to some extent, in my personal life – I have done as much as I can to plan for a future event, and now am in a quiet time before busyness breaks out with a vengeance. Once that is completed, I will return to my own home and pick up the threads of my life.

Meanwhile I have a friend who has just passed the date when she was due to give birth – and this morning I read about another blogger’s wife who is in the same situation. And it made me wonder what it must be like to experience an even more intense period of waiting – to know such an immense change is inevitable, but not when it will come. When all the preparations are done and there is nothing to do but wait. So I wrote this poem.