One of my dearest, and most gifted, friends wrote the poem I share today.

The poem is beautiful, and one that deeply touches me as I “set [my] sails for this river of light to the edge beyond where [I] dare, where [my] arms know the weight of [my] strength and [my] largeness, untethered, roams free.”

I hope that her words can also encourage you to seize all of the space that your arms can hold–to live into all possibilities for tomorrow, and to set sail into the river of your grandest dreams of motherhood. I’ll see you on the banks on the other side.

INTO SPACE

We are all on the verge
of letting go and letting in,
taking flight and touching down,
arms laden with the fruit of some seized truth
that has parted the night sky
and brought the stars to our feet.

So now the trembling will cease,
what confronts already a memory
of wrestling a sweet release
from the clutch of the tiger’s jaws.

Do not delay.
Allow yourself to fall into the cavernous hollow
that awaits the shape of your life.

And listen, listen
for the voice that rises from the luted heart,
where trust plucks the strings to this song.

You have only one charge this day,
one request from the splintering dawn:
set your sails for this river of light
to the edge beyond where you dare,
where your arms know the weight of your strength
and your largeness, untethered, roams free.

- Naila Francis