"Wombstone" - A Poem by Chris Hansen of Modesto

February 2006 | Chris Hansen

[Saundra Duffy]

Chris Hansen is a friend of FreeRepublic. He freeped Gary "Condidit" Condit with us, right along-side the head FReeper HIMSELF, Jim Robinson!! Chris is multi-talented, a prolific writer, and speaker. He has agreed to speak at the memorial service we are planning for the one-year anniversary of the death of Terri Schindler Schiavo.

Really powerful poem.

[Saundra Duffy]

Fresno/Central Valley FR chapter BUMP.

[Saundra Duffy]

Chris is beautiful.

[Irish Rose]

How can you forget, indeed...

A chilling, beautiful, moving poem. Thank you for posting it.

[Saundra Duffy]

I wish you could meet Chris. He's blind, you know.

[Darkwolf377]

Very interesting. I recently sold a horror story that is actually an anti-abortion story. I am shocked it sold, as I've been trying to sell it for some time. Maybe some people are getting the message, or they're easily distracted by the horror trappings, and thus messages can be slipped through, but I am finding that lately I'm having an easier time of selling genre fiction with conservative political themes.

[jazusamo]

Very chilling, but that's what murder is.

[NicknamedBob]

Prolific

I guess you’ve heard the story, the kernel on the chessboard,
Where every square redoubled. The math that that incurred!!
It was two to the sixty-fourth, a considerable amount,
But here’s a number in its league, that doesn’t seem to count.

A fertilized ovum, a zygote, if you will,
Doubles and redoubles with a place on Earth to fill.
And if it gets a chance to start in breathing on its own,
Who knows to just what magnitude a little seed has grown?

But all too often happenstance prevents the growth in full,
Sometimes it’s only growing wrong, most often it’s a tool.
A sharp and painful instrument, from the Devil and from Death.
Interrupts the Holy plan before the baby draws its breath.

There must be somewhere that the just reward for what took place,
Will ultimately present itself to those who have to face,
The One who grades us for our math, and if someone should ask,
Subtracting gets a failing grade, when Multiply was the task.

NicknamedBob . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . July 24, 2004

[Saundra Duffy]

Best of luck, FReeper pal. Good success!!!

[Saundra Duffy]

Thank you for posting you poem. Very powerful. I hate abortion so much!

[Darkwolf377]

Thanks! I consider myself an undercover agent for life in the liberal side of the border...

[colorcountry]

Won't anybody hold me, and get me through this lonely night!

I cried when I got to that line. Oh, those poor women! Some of them are our sisters, friends. I pray they will all be comforted. (and forgiven)

[Saundra Duffy]

Chris is a miracle. He will be so pleased to see that his poem is posted on FreeRepublic and that people are responding. I'll send him the link. He is a great writer, too, like you.

[Saundra Duffy]

I have always felt sorry for the women who have abortions. Some of them are forced into it by cirumstances or by parents, boyfriends, husbands. All of them suffer. Every one. Abortion is not a picnic. I have never thought that the women should be prosecuted - the doctors, yes. Not the women. I see them as victims, really, but it's high time women stop letting themselves be victimized and exploited by abortion.

[Darkwolf377]

That's funny you say you'll email him, I've just emailed his poem to several people. One is my mom, who has never completely gotten over a stillbirth she had in the 60's. The insensitivity with which the hospital staff treated her baby has haunted her to this day.

That's the word I would use about this poem, haunting. The repeated refrain keeps bringing back that opening image of the shape in the sheet, ghost-like and wrapped as if for burial. Very disturbing, and that's what's needed--to bring back the disturbing aspects of abortion, which I believe bother even most people who are for abortion. This poem is pretty brutal, as the subject matter deserves.

[JustAmy]

Wonderful, Bob.

Thank you for sharing.

[JustAmy]

Powerful is right, Saundra.

Thank Chris for sharing his poem with us.

[Saundra Duffy]

This poem is pretty brutal, as the subject matter deserves.

Amen. Abortion is spitting in God's face.

[Saundra Duffy]

Just emailed the link to Chris. He will be very pleased. He wants to shout to the world about how rotten things have become. He was livid over what they did to Terri Schiavo, too. Just livid!

[Tim Long]

Oh, those poor women!

Frankly, I think they deserve to die. They are no different than people who hire hit men. People always say "Those women are so confused! They don't know what they're doing!" Well they sure knew what they were doing when they got pregnant. I feel that "Oh, those poor murdered children!" is a more appropriate response. (As I'm sure you would agree.)