References: Jeremiah 31:15, 1 Kings 3:16-27, Genesis 4:25

"But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart."
-Luke 2:19

I must admit that there have been times when, holding him close to my breast, the smell and taste of milk still upon him (a maternal christening that I have taken part in day in and out), I play with dashing him against the rocks.

Not dropping; dropping is too passive an action, and indicates indifference, a mind onset with much and madness; dropping shouts of a mere accident, of two hands too full to hold on tightly enough. But to dash one's child against the large stones, pebbled and made smooth with storms that pour sand instead of water- what a thought!

The women, when they see me coming down towards the well, smile and hold out their arms. They breathe in his scent and examine his limbs, and I am given a moment of respite. The water is most cool then, when he is no longer mine, but their's for a lingering moment or two.

They think he does not cry, for he smiles gamely up at them, and they smile toothlessly back at him. My son too does not have teeth. Babes they are, all of them; though I am free, I still feel like a mother, and not of only one child, but of many. That is when the water turns bitter, and I notice the flies and the sand once more, clinging to both veil and hazy sky. The horizon shrinks within itself; disappears; rebounds in leaps and grapples with the mortar of my skin.

"Such a handsome child; such a lovely child," they tell me, and then, seeing something unpleasant in my face, they turn to me with displeasure. "But you must not be proud! Gird thyself with righteousness!…"

"I am not proud." (Though I say it proudly.)

"Let it be so. Let it be so. But this child is a God-send!"

I smile. A God-send. My fingers creep towards my belly, and I remember.

God-send, for all of a moment. Light and dusk and silver threads and fingers wide and searching. Yes, in every crevice and through the broken shell; inside and braided through each fiber and each breath. A God-send. What a word, what a thought; as cingular and as evasive as any other.

But he does cry. He cries before I lay my head down, and after, and while I seek rest. Joseph, he grunts in his sleep, and pushes me with one arm, an arm heavy with work, as though I should readily roll over and run to the babe, my two legs bent in constant readiness. He's clever, the child is, and hasn't he been fed and changed already? What more does he need? I've learned to ignore him though, and have memorized the cracks that have taken root on the ceiling above; the blossoms erupting ever more with each gale and shower. I've told Joseph that the one above his head looks like a crescent moon, but he doesn't seem to mind. I've often thought that the day will come when I will wake up next to a moon-beam, and not a man. The thought doesn't phase me though; Joseph is a handy carpenter.

There are times when I lay him down beside us (the little one, that is), and he sleeps than. I oft raise myself up on one arm, and play with his curls, and then my thoughts return to Solomon, and the two harlots in their need. I think that if we were to cut up my child (my child!); wait, no. Not cut up. But divide him in half, yes; we would be content. Joseph would have the fingers and the belly, for he needs the child's hands in the shop amidst the wood and the scrapings, and the tools that I've often examined and dusted. I've always been fond of his toes, of their curled plumpness, like thoughts not yet in bloom: so I would have those little limbs, and the thought is pleasing. Those two mothers; why weren't they both content with just half a child? A little babe to play with and forget. But those are just dreams, sleeping thoughts, and they look back at me with cracked indifference, marred and mirror-like, whispering that I am not yet awake. And when I rouse myself, I am beside him, and hold him. No, I am not willing to part with him just yet.

And now I think of Eve, and of her holding Seth inside her heavy, womanly arms. Looking down upon him, she must have been confused. What did you think Eve, looking down at him? How could you decide who he was meant to replace: the slaughtered or the slaughterer?

They were both her sons, anyway, and she never forgot that, even when Seth climbed his first tree, and not least of all when he ran to her with his first butchered lamb, his hands sticky with crimson and gold. She must have wept then, remembering.

"And what about you, little one?" I ask my own son. His hands are still clean, these palms, these wrists are smooth and lithe and hungry.

Then there was Rachel, weeping for her children because they were not. There must have been a cry then, in Samaria; and there must have been a heaving and a sobbing when we fled from Bethlehem. The little ones, dashed as crumbs or spoiled, unripe fruit. There must have been one mother glad to see her little one go. One mouth less to feed; yes. But there should have been more Rachel's there. There must have been, despite the hunger and the bothersome crying.

He looks up at me, and I am wary. Carrying him was a burden, and I still carry him. Someday he will walk, and then what? I will still carry him. The rocks are meant for dashing, but his toes are meant for kissing, and he is all of mine; every part of him.