Unborn heart…

I saw this post in somebody’s blog about an autopsy done on a newborn baby found dead and the first thing that came to mind was this song by Dan Hill (more popularly known for his song, “Sometimes when we touch”) – Unborn Heart. If you have never heard the song before, you can just click the link and give it a listen. I would have chosen the other video clip showing the ultrasound images of the baby in the womb but the song is hardly audible.

Anyway, I have gone back to look for the post so that I may be able to link it to this post but it seems that it has been removed probably due to some underlying professional ethics or something else that I do not know of. Well, whatever the case may be, the fact remains that with the moral decadence in society today, cases of abandoned babies, babies found dead in rubbish bins or drowned in toilets and streams, young teenage girls resorting to abortions and so on are on the rise.

That post also reminded me of this poem by Wong Phui Nam – “At the door” which was one of the those selected for the previous Literature in English cycle for the SPM Examination. Categorised under the theme of “Hope”, the “expert” at the time interpreted the poem as the baby in the womb crying out to the mother in the hope that it would be born safely into the world. I read it but somehow it appeared to me that it was about the abortion of an unborn child and the spirit of the baby was crying out to the mother. The way I saw it, the baby had died and there was no longer any HOPE. Perhaps you would like to read the poem and share what you think the underlying meaning may be…

Mother, why did you let
the poison seep down,
blacken leaf and stem
from overhead course down the roots
to pinch and disarrange
the bulging knob
that was to find its shape
to be my head?

Why did you let
the poison seep through
befoul the streams that join together,
from beneath well up as spoilt blood
to stain and soften
the hooked tail
that was to lose itself
for the forked ends of my limbs?

Did you not sense me,
image my face, my dumb form
before I melted back
into the glistening bunched gel,
red grapes shot thick with ash,
as I, expelled,
made my way out in my sac
filming over so soon with death?

Mother, tell me about your world.
Tell me if you found
the light of day so harsh
the sight of all things
intrude with such sharp anxieties
upon your heart
and in the night, in sleep,
if you stumbled upon such upheavals,
your dreams could not connect
and you would let your hand to smudge
such traceries, filaments through which,
delicate and sure as crystals forming,
I was to emerge;
let your hand
disturb where no disturbances should –
random places, clear springs of life.

“Judge not, that ye be not judged.” ~ Matthew 7:1, so I shall not deliberate further on the issue but in this month of November, the month for the departed souls, I would think that it is appropriate to spare a moment and say a little prayer for those unfortunate, innocent souls whose lives had ended all too soon…and for whom nobody ever prays.