Wednesday, October 12, 2011

An Excruciatingly Beautiful Poem

I am honored to have known Carole Anderson, a mother who lost one of her children to adoption, a past president of Concerned United Birthparents, and a visionary who called for adoption to be replaced with guardianship back in the 1990s.

She was a social worker and an attorney and a powerful spokesperson and writer, and one of my personal heroines and role models. I don't know if any other of her poems were published, but this one was in my first book, shedding light on...The Dark Side of Adoption (p 91).

PREREUNION PAIN

I am filled with hate:
a black, hot cancer of hate
I hide with a hearty grimace
I call a smile
while it consumes me.
I hate the evil agencies that say nature is nothing and mothers even less, 
that claim to create while they maim and destroy.
I hate those men of God
who use youthful faith as a sword
to sever hearts and souls,
who promise forgiveness
at the price of martyred lives.
I hate the grasping couples who pray to God to bless them by damning families He made, who self-righteously build greedy joy on the bodies of bleeding mothers.
I hate the foolish girl I was, who so despised
herself
she believed she was unworthy, whose choiceless trust in others' wisdom made her child a sold commodity. I am filled with hate for the agonies of adoption: its endless, aching injustice,
its everlasting spiritual torment,
and the festering of eternal emptiness.
—C.J. Anderson
Originally published as "Adoption Agony," Origins, March/April, 1983.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Lesson number one in life is NEVER trust a "man of God", or women for that matter.

RussiaToday Apr 29, 2010 on Russian Adoption Freeze

Russi Today: America television Interview 4/16/10 Regarding the Return of Artyem, 7, to Russia alone

RT: Russia-America TV Interview 3/10

Korean Birthmothers Protest to End Adoption

Motherhood, Adoption, Surrender, & Loss

Who Am I?

Bitter Winds

Adoption and Truth Video

Adoption Truth

Birthparents Never Forget