She bore a son on the run, another roadside baby

National Catholic Reporter, Dec 11, 1998 by KILIAN McDONNELL

I am indebted to M. Shaun Kopeland for calling my attention to the news item in the European section of the London Times on Feb. 12, 1992. A pregnant Moslem woman living in Naples, Italy, was walking down a road when her water broke. She soon went into labor. The poem was prompted by this incident.

   The water broke as I, a Moslem in
   a Catholic land, was crossing the frantic
   Corso.
   I leaned my great protruding selves
   against
   a wall, my clothes plastered to our skin.
   A black in a crowded bus with wet pants?
   I still had time, so I began to walk
   along the road. The terror fell at the four
   mile mark, as meltdown rants
   against the wave on wave of inland pain.
   Galaxies of bolts protest against
   the universe. I have no time as I strain
   to lie upon the concrete curbing
   where I will have a roadside baby.
   Ladies pushing grocery carts pause,
   rearranging their hair, not disturbing
   vast eternal plans, they walk away.
   A boy points, "Look
   what the nigger's
   doing!"
   The garbage men park
   the truck to collect
   the decay of our
   humanity and stay
   to see the spectacle in
   living color.
   Not unobserved but
   unassisted,
   I bear my son and tear
   away my skirt
   for swaddling cloth -- Naples
   does not stir
   and Vesuvius is silent.
   You know
   in the prophet's
   Somalia it is not so.

Benedictine Fr. Kilian McDonnell is president of the Institute for Ecumenical and Cultural Research at St. John's University in Collegeville, Minn. He is author of The Baptism of Jesus in the Jordan: The Trinitarian and Cosmic Order of Salvation (Liturgical Press).