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  • Learning to Stand
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Learning to Stand

Gillian K. Ferguson

On the earth a stretched second
you stood, balanced. Gravity

glued dolly shoes. You wore
the sky on your head, jauntily,

light blue paper hat plumed
with feather clouds, as air’s

transparent gloves cuddled
you upright. Padding paws

forgot themselves in hands.
You learn the trick of standing

as the world spins, hurtles,
turns you upside down

in darkness. Already
you’ll lean less on me.


Gillian K. Ferguson

from Baby: poems on pregnancy, birth and babies (Edinburgh: Canongate, 2001)

Reproduced by permission of the author.

Tags:

babies childhood gravity learning parenthood
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Gillian K. Fergusonb.1965

Gillian Ferguson is an Edinburgh-born poet and journalist; she has responded to the Human Genome project with a major web-based sequence of poems on the book of life.
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