Potential

Suggested Reading: Luke 1

Do we ever look at women and not see potential?
Not just the physical —
maybe a few pounds lighter,
eyebrows should arch higher,
if she didn’t look so tired…
But the physics,
bodies on the precipice of change —
the coiled spring,
the unlit match,
the water behind the dam.
We are revolutionary in the truest sense,
cyclical, each month a testament to
the possibility of life,
the inevitability of death,
the transformation in between.

Rebekah, Rachel, and Hannah weep,
pleading for a son,
wombs left empty,
filled instead with primal longing,
the burden of hope.
Seasons of waiting, then a voice cries in the wilderness.
Mary, troubled and brave, wonders
at the angel’s greeting,
at the gift, unexpected,
at the cycle, broken.
The coil springs, the dam bursts, the match combusts
and sets aflame all we know about potential.
Impossibly, inevitably alive,
the promise takes shape,
and we are transformed.