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Still Thinking, September 1998 (Broken)
Still Thinking, October 1998 (Generosity)
Still Thinking, December 1998 (Parenting as Practice)
Still Thinking, January 1999 (Clinging is Suffering)
Still Thinking, February 1999 (Conscious Breathing)
Still Thinking, March 1999  (Happy all the time?)
Still Thinking, April, 1999  (Breathing Room)
Still Thinking, May 1999 (Auto-parent)
Still Thinking, June 1999 (Creative energy)
Still Thinking, July 1999 (You are your child's healthcare expert)
Still Thinking, August 1999 (Parenting as Practice, Part 2)
Still Thinking, September 1999 (Feminists raising boys)
Still Thinking, October 1999 (Feminism and Homemaking)
Still Thinking, November 1999 (Meditations for Mothers of Toddlers)
Still Thinking, December 1999 (Infant World Teachers)

Steam rises, here and north of here 
from a hundred holes in the snow, 
from a hundred warm stone caves 
where sister bear curls dreaming against the cold 
around a cub who grumbles, stirs 
the way you do against my belly, 
under this thick white blanket. 
In the walls of here and everywhere 
in fluffy nests of shredded work gloves, 
leaves, insulation, 
mouse mother's white belly curves 
like the crescent moon around her naked brood, 
containing their blindness. 
Think of it: in attic boxes, basement drawers, 
 warm fur and the tiny miracle of mouse milk. 
Even in deepest sleep I cannot put you down. 
I know from instinct 
that birth takes months; a push from womb 
to cradleboard, hammock, sling; 
Woman rises, sore, from birthing 
returns to the work of life, hands free 
for gathering, digging in dirt, kneading bread. 
She walks unhindered, patting the sling 
like a pregnant belly, shifting familiar weight. 
Baby remembers the tight, dark warmth 
the comfort of heartsounds, rides rocked in her walk 
awash in the waves of her breathing like before. 
  At night, in the furs, 
in hammocks and sleeping mats, pioneer rope beds, 
in wigwams,grass huts, soddies, they slept 
as we sleep now, 
heart to heart. Before you were born 
I listened for you all night, 
curled on my side around your squirming. 
Now your breathing comforts me back; you wake 
and nurse, rooting, 
grunting like a lion cub, smelling of warmth and milk. 
When newborn nightmares furrow your brow, 
(what fear from deep and long ago?) 
push that quivering bottom lip, you stiffen, reach out 
touch ... mama 
and that face erases, small pond after a rain. 
I try to imagine why you should be 
in the next room, alone, 
on your back, in the dark, on that wide caged crib mattress 
where predators drool and prowl, where instinct 
(your only compass) says unheld is unsafe, 
alone, 
crying that wail of the dropped and falling, 
the howl of the foundling, 
orphan left on forest floor, 
on glacial ridge, in desert sand, 
alone. 

Kelly Averill-Savino, 1995