Bringing Hannah Home

We brought Hannah home today

in afternoon sun with a crisp chill in the air

on a hill overlooking the bay.

Two women with a child and a shovel and a frozen placenta wrapped in aluminum foil placed in a red plastic bag.

Hannah was brought into this world

some say fourth others say fifth

five days before.

Before we brought her home.

The weekend of rain softened the earth

but the cold discouraged the shovel from denting more than the surface.

I dug into the earth.

The ground weakened beneath the strength I put into the shovel

pounding the ground

smooth and moist at first

then cold and solid.

Pounding the ground

warmed my arms.

I thought good thoughts for Hannah and her mother

and prayed for us all.

Remembering those who have passed on and those to be born

and I thought of my children to be born

and I thought of my father who has passed on.

Breaking into the cold ground

I thought of the day we brought my father home.

Dinétah winter had frozen the ground

and the earth chipped like ice, slivers of crunchy cold beneath our feet.

Our bodies warmed by our work

and the earth chipped like an old tree being chopped, taking hours to finish.

Our bodies tired from our work

and the earth piled high beside the hole like the clouds and just as fluffy.

Our bodies natural returning to the ground.

I dug into the ground

digging out earth that would nourish Hannah

digging out life that would embody Hannah

and soon a small hole appeared four feet deep.

There we stood

two women with a child and a shovel and a frozen placenta wrapped in aluminum foil placed in a red plastic bag.

The frozen mass of

tissue and blood and life

was placed in the small hole

by Hannah’s mother

and I felt her heat

tissue and blood and life

squatting with bloodied hands and cold earth

bringing Hannah home.

Source: From the Belly of My Beauty (University of Arizona Press, 1999)