Stuart Bartow

21 Grams

When my mother was pregnant with me, Aunt Ethyl was also late in her pregnancy, dying of cancer. How darkly luminous her world must have been at the time, two lives, one on the verge of leaving the womb and the other the world. Maybe the paradox didn’t feel strange to her. There are many species of moths and butterflies, fish, octopuses, who lay eggs, perish shortly thereafter, like my Aunt Ethyl, whom I never met.

molted cicada shell     almost weightless

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About the Author

Stuart Bartow lives in the Taconics region of New York State, where he chairs the Battenkill Conservancy, an environmental organization working on the Vermont-New York border. His most recent book of haiku and haibun is One Branch, published by Red Moon Press.