Day ___ in the Neonatal ICU
Immersed among clinical miracles and embodied angels
Lights and alarms holding us like loving arms
These rooms tell tales of new life too soon arrived

Heaviness in the faces of those walking by
Mothers and fathers caught in this purgatory place
A liminal lounge of hope and loss
Between a lifetime and a life without time

Plastic tubes and sacred portals
Bringing resurrection rays to the most fragile limbs
Oxygen flowing through days old veins
Nourishing souls with miraculous compounds

Screens and numbers signifying safety zones
Every life we’ve ever known
Exists between these invisible membranes of
Too high or too low, Too much or too little

Lord, give us patience, diligence, and faith
As we’re leashed to the clock’s call for the next nursing
And anxiously awaiting discharge orders
But only as soon as breath will sustain

This sacred waiting space
To gather strength and collect care
Prepares us for all that’s next
A world of unknowable highs and lows

The journey is love, the fabric of our existence
Before consciousness and preterm births
And beyond legacies and lineages
Love lead us on forevermore

Amen