ROE

Backward, turn backward, O Time, in your flight,

Make me a child again just for tonight!

Mother, come back from the echoless shore,

Take me again to your heart as of yore;

Kiss from my forehead the furrows of care,

Smooth the few silver threads out of my hair;

Over my slumbers your loving watch keep;—     

Rock me to sleep, mother, – rock me to sleep!

Backward, flow backward, O tide of the years!

I am so weary of toil and of tears,—     

Toil without recompense, tears all in vain,—  

Take them, and give me my childhood again!

I have grown weary of dust and decay,—  

Weary of flinging my soul-wealth away;

Weary of sowing for others to reap;—  

Rock me to sleep, mother – rock me to sleep!

Tired of the hollow, the base, the untrue,

Mother, O mother, my heart calls for you!

Many a summer the grass has grown green,

Blossomed and faded, our faces between:

Yet, with strong yearning and passionate pain,

Long I tonight for your presence again.

Come from the silence so long and so deep;—  

Rock me to sleep, mother, – rock me to sleep!

Over my heart, in the days that are flown,

No love like mother-love ever has shone;

No other worship abides and endures,—     

Faithful, unselfish, and patient like yours:

None like a mother can charm away pain

From the sick soul and the world-weary brain.

Slumber’s soft calms o’er my heavy lids creep;—     

Rock me to sleep, mother, – rock me to sleep!

Come, let your brown hair, just lighted with gold,

Fall on your shoulders again as of old;

Let it drop over my forehead tonight,

Shading my faint eyes away from the light;

For with its sunny-edged shadows once more

Haply will throng the sweet visions of yore;

Lovingly, softly, its bright billows sweep;—  

Rock me to sleep, mother, – rock me to sleep!

Mother, dear mother, the years have been long

Since I last listened your lullaby song:

Sing, then, and unto my soul it shall seem

Womanhood’s years have been only a dream.

Clasped to your heart in a loving embrace,

With your light lashes just sweeping my face,

Never hereafter to wake or to weep;—     

Rock me to sleep, mother, – rock me to sleep!

— Elizabeth Akers Allen, Rock Me to Sleep

***

It is time for me to go, mother; I am going.

When in the paling darkness of the lonely dawn you stretch out your arms for your baby in the bed, I shall say, “Baby is not there!”—mother, I am going.

I shall become a delicate draught of air and caress you; and I shall be ripples in the water when you bathe, and kiss you and kiss you again.

In the gusty night when the rain patters on the leaves you will hear my whisper in your bed, and my laughter will flash with the lightning through the open window into your room.

If you lie awake, thinking of your baby till late into the night, I shall sing to you from the stars, “Sleep, mother, sleep.”

On the straying moonbeams I shall steal over your bed, and lie upon your bosom while you sleep.

I shall become a dream, and through the little opening of your eyelids I shall slip into the depths of your sleep; and when you wake up and look round startled, like a twinkling firefly I shall flit out into the darkness.

When, on the great festival of puja, the neighbours’ children come and play about the house, I shall melt into the music of the flute and throb in your heart all day.

Dear auntie will come with puja-presents and will ask, “Where is our baby, sister?” Mother, you will tell her softly, “He is in the pupils of my eyes, he is in my body and in my soul.”

— Rabindrath Tagore, The End

***

In 2022, Roe v. Wade is on the ballot within numerous statewide elections around the country. With the recent leak of the SCOTUS draft opinion, the constitutionality of Roe itself teeters within the penumbra of the abyss. If Roe v. Wade is overturned, 13 states (Arkansas, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, and Wyoming) with “trigger laws” already on the books would prohibit abortions in the first and second trimesters. All told, 26 states would further restrict abortion were Roe overturned.

Below is the list of ballot measures available for citizens of their respective states to vote on in the 2022 midterm elections, as well as voter registration information:

• Colorado Abortion Ban Initiative (2022)*

  • Colorado Election Information

• Kansas No State Constitutional Right to Abortion and Legislative Power to Regulate Abortion Amendment (August 2022)

  • Kansas Voter Information

• Kentucky No Right to Abortion in Constitution Amendment (2022)

  • Kentucky Registration

• Michigan Right to Reproductive Freedom Initiative (2022)*

  • Michigan Voter information

• Montana LR-131, Medical Care Requirements for Born-Alive Infants Measure (2022)

  • How to Register to Vote in Montana

• Oklahoma No Right to Abortion in Constitution Amendment (2022)*

• Oklahoma Establish Rights of Unborn Persons Amendment (2022)*

  • Oklahoma State Election Board

• Vermont Proposal 5, Right to Personal Reproductive Autonomy Amendment (2022)

  • Frequently Asked Questions about voting in Vermont

*May appear on the ballot in statewide elections in November: if one does appear, then there will be more abortion-related ballot measures at issue this election season than at any other time in American history.

In the states where citizen ballot initiatives are allowed, there is an opportunity to overturn these laws, provided no judges block the attempt to overturn. What with over 200 Senate-confirmed judges appointed during the administration of the 45th President, it stands to reason that those judges may well hold to a philosophy that maintains the trigger laws, and with a weakened 14th Amendment were Roe overturned, seek to consolidate power in the hands of a reactionary few.