A Pregnancy Poem

This morning, my bff Farrah sent me this poem about pregnancy via text message. We spent some time analyzing it and commenting.  How fun!  Here's the poem, and some of my thoughts.

Metaphors

I'm a riddle in nine syllables,
An elephant, a ponderous house,
A melon strolling on two tendrils.
O red fruit, ivory, fine timbers!
This loaf's big with its yeasty rising.
Money's new-minted in this fat purse.
I'm a means, a stage, a cow in calf.
I've eaten a bag of green apples,
Boarded the train there's no getting off.  

I am 7 months preggo right now and reading this poem made me laugh.  It is a dark humor, one that you can best understand if you have gone through what she had gone through.

I really believe this poem is ambiguous- she is both happy and sad, amongst a huge cocktail mix of other things.  As a pregnant woman, there are many feelings and emotions going on. 

One of the biggest thing you notice when pregnant is just how HUGE you feel!!  My favorite line is "a melon strolling on two tendrils."  I visually pictured this and it was very amusing.  Also, the terms "elephant", "ponderous house", "fat purse", and "melon" all refer to feeling massive, bloated, gigantic!

There are also lots of terms that refer to feeling fruitful: "o red fruit", "loaf's big with yeasty rising", "money's new-minted."  Newly formed, fresh, growing, etc. 

 One of the lines, "I'm a means, a stage" makes me think she was feeling very much like she was only a vessel in which to bake a baby.  She also felt like she was the big show that everyone was watching, since everyone always comments on the "baby bump" and how you look when pregnant.  Then she says a "cow in a calf." At first I thought that should be reversed (like that she feels like she is a cow that has a calf in her)...  But now it makes total sense to me.  She felt like a calf in a cow- she feels like a small child inside a big mama's body.  She probably felt anxious, unprepared, too young to really be having a baby.  I have felt that way at times, although I am not too young.  Even through pregnancy you can feel like a little kid at heart still, nervous that you wont exactly be ready for motherhood. 

When she says "I have eaten a bag of green apples, I can really relate to that!  I have eaten lots of green apples since becoming pregnant, #1 because I have craved them, #2 because they're healthy, #3 because they relieve heartburn.  But she is also speaking of feeling like she has just eaten a bag of plump, round apples and they are filling up her belly making her feel swollen, ripe, perhaps even leaving a sour taste (like green apples do). 

Lastly, when she says she has boarded a train and there is no getting off… I don't believe that she actually wanted to end her pregnancy or that she was unhappy with being pregnant.  I do believe that just like any pregnant woman, you realize how life altering of a thing pregnancy is.  There is no turning back.  You will be bringing a life into the world.  I experienced this feeling toward the beginning of my pregnancy.  On Facebook, an old friend commented saying, "You're going to be a mom!?  How do you feel about that? Are you ready?"  And my response was… "well, no going back now!"   There won't ever be any going back to a time and a life where I was married with no kids, and not pregnant.  Which is a good thing!

One pretty sweet fact about the poem:  there are nine lines,  and nine syllables in each line. 

Overall, love the poem and love Sylvia.  She sure had a way of expressing herself!