Else Blangsted 1920-2020
“There is no baby. The baby is dead.”
How does anyone go on from there?
Yet she finds a way, daily led
From night too heavy to bear
An infant who took no breath.
Life within her, hidden, ashamed
But a mother prefers her own death
Rather then birth a child unnamed
“I need someone to take the milk”
Keep out of sight – Gestapo gestalt
No more Jews in an Aryan world
Corset too tight she thought it her fault
Never knew if boy or girl
A black mark – family strain
At fifteen in America free
Another mark for those who remain
Trains carry ashes to be
I need someone to take the milk
A prayer, a plea, a need to nurture
her child, herself, a world badly broken.
To care, to be, a sacred searcher
Finds her way to what must be spoken:
I need someone to take the milk
She shaped the music of movies
The Color Purple, On Golden Pond
Ordinary People, Milagro, beauteous
Art that allows us to go beyond
There is no baby. The baby is dead
Deliver us from isolation
Help us to not turn away
From sorrow, death and desperation
Teach us how to pray
I need someone to take the milk
47 years after birth stillborn
She learned the lie of the dead
Cruelly daughter from mother was torn
A conversation, Else Blangsted said
“This is your Mama. Forgive me”
How do we live with what should not have been?
God let us forgive what could never be sin
Let us praise one another and be mindful of
Our sacred mothers – their milk, their love