/ Exceeding Dangerously Ill - 21 August, 1778
Clear morning & very hot. The flax has deepened
from the milky blue of newborn eyes
to a beeswax color. Yesterday, my girls broke
my needle, stringing the seed pods together, pretending
they were gold beads richer women wear.
I couldn’t compose to sleep last night thinking of what might trouble my children.
The wind in the flax gave no soothe. It rattled like the breath
of six-month-old Billy who expired in June.
Canker Rash is upon us now
& the cold water root I’ve dug & dispensed
has done little —
At the funeral, Billy’s father claimed that whom the lord loveth he chasteneth.
He spoke of the grace of submission. How happy to feel the temper of holy Job.
Billy was their only child. His wife kept silent —
Of this, until now, I’ve also kept silent;
though, I feel, writing fails to disrupt much
—so few of us can read & even fewer can write & who of us has the leisure?
I’ve heard the Abenaki women who lived on the land before us
are not silent in grief. They have dances, prayers, songs & do not believe in hell.
My knowledge of cold water root comes from a trader,
but he learned it from Abenaki women who revived him of sickness.
Our minister, Mr. Foster, says it’s God’s will that we’re here & they’re not,
that divine providence took the form of illness from which so many Abenaki died.
Yet if the lord chastens whom he loves,
does the lord not love the Abenaki too?
Mr. Foster decries the evil spirits they worship.
Do we not also worship a spirit, the holy ghost?
Mr. Foster says of such things I know little, but does knowing not come from asking questions,
of which I have many,
& thus am I not always on the brink of new knowledge?
Of knowledge of the body in which the spirit is housed, I believe I often am.
Of the minister’s body, I certainly know more than most —
he limps on a leg shriveled since childhood,
he has a burn on his forearm from boiling maple sap,
before sermons he drinks — sometimes profusely —
& he’s often overcome with flatulence & in need of licorice
& as of last night — when I visited him — he was near expiring from Canker Rash.
— Exceeding Dangerously Ill —
It seems the Lord loves the minister very much.
*
/ I Tarried All Night - 1 April, 1779
Cold & clear. The ice has begun to crack & sound like musket fire.
Mr. Edson knocked at midnight — his wife being in travail —
& drew me across the river on his sledge. We kept safe,
despite the danger, but both were sodden. I thought of my godson who last week drank
so much spirit he caused his death, his body found sunk in river slush.
When I arrived, Mrs. Edson was kneeling, her head on a cushion on the seat of a chair.
Exertion had spun her eyes back in her head & a lull had come over her
as it sometimes does before the bearing down begins.
Not wanting to disturb her, I drank tea & dried by the fire.
Before long, she reared with a deep noise & strained as if her bowels were hard. Her belly was
uncommonly large — I had not seen her in some months. Of this condition there can be various
reasons & outcomes
Excessive water — children can be born strange or deformed
A large child — between pains, I asked if she’d had blurred sight, nausea these last months,
much thirst,
or if her urine smelled sweet or of fruit — she denied it.
Multiples — dangers arise for mothers whose bones are small from never having had children.
Mrs. Edson had had one prior & that was a mercy
Between pains, I placed my hands on her stomach & was nearly certain of multiples.
The more she bore down, the more I could see a child’s buttocks advance & then recede
— its bowels emptying tarry stool.
I’ve learned that you cannot pull a child out —
Instead, when all parts but its head have emerged,
wrap the child in a warm cloth & hook the pointer & middle finger
of your hand at the base of the child’s neck & over the shoulders
then, insert the middle finger of your other hand into the child’s mouth,
which is still inside the mother
& then with continuous motion, tuck the child’s chin to its chest
— until the hairline at the nape of its neck appears —
& then press down on the base of its skull
& pull firmly upward as one does when freeing a lamb stuck
in the scooped opening rabbits dig under woven willow fences.
But in this case, the shoulders never emerged. The child descended to its waist & then stopped
& this is exceedingly rare for a woman who has birthed before.
I’d seen this once prior & both children died
because when a second child lies above the first
& that first child leads with its buttocks,
their heads can lock — like clasped hands —
& neither will move until a doctor comes & dismembers them with his tools
& for this reason I dared not call for Dr. Page.
But I’ve heard tell of a Black Lady Doctor from Quebec who’s very skilled
& people travel far to see her. It’s said she preserves such children.
With only her hands she unlocks their heads
by pushing the second child further up which allows the first to descend —
I grabbed two curved gourds & showed Mrs. Edson how they fit
& explained there would be scarce room for my hand
& the pains might overcome her — but she mustn’t bear down otherwise
the heads would further lock.
As I instructed her in this, all fell silent
& I could hear only fire & snow sliding from the roof & my own mind
— but no one pleaded me to call for Dr. Page.
In writing, it’s hard to convey rapidity
& in this case my writing shows not a slowness of action but carefulness
& a desire to remember what I did —
With melted lard, Mrs. Edson’s sister slicked my best forearm
& I slid my hand —palm up — under the belly of the first child
& reached to find the head of the second & indeed their chins were locked
— I’d placed Mrs. Edson on a high bed so I could stand & have more strength —
The pressure from my forearm ripped Mrs. Edson & she began to bleed
so I bent my knees & braced myself
against the bed while I pushed the second child up into the space above
& then the first came down & I delivered him as I know how
& then the second followed leading with his head & that was easy
but Mrs. Edson was profusely bleeding
from where she’d ripped & if such parts are severely broken
stool might ooze & this causes great suffering & disability.
I tarried all night & poulticed her with cloth soaked in boiled yarrow
& urged her to bring the babies to the breast to stop the bleeding.
Come morning, I could see her parts were not so broken
& she would heal with time & slowness.
I left her cleverly — & now I’m home but cannot sleep for all the possible harms
the frenzy of tending frees me from.
*
/ Ghost Apples - 2 February, 1812 -
No sweetness. Just air and ice and light.
Ice that stays ice
despite what gleams against it.
My aged face distorts. Red nose, blued lips,
continent the ghost apple’s curved surface
and through it—all appears white except for blurs of green
and brown grass under which experience tells me rabbits sleep.
Apples never freeze clean. Too sugary. They rot.
Precious only to deer who feast on their collapsing flesh.
Look — now — at the edge of the orchard, deer are leaping,
their legs so quick they hardly flick or gather snow.
Little else in the world is as careful as a deer. Little else is as afraid.
Experience tells me most fear is wisdom. Foresight even.
Except, when the world and I see each other like this,
well, that’s exactly it:
we see each other, and in that seeing,
I slip out of myself
as an apple, given the right conditions,
can slip from its encasement of ice.
Some say it’s a myth, but I’ve seen apples fall
to meet the doe’s soft mouth. The ice holding
what the apple was
even as it becomes something else.