Her Beatitudes

Vincent Hostak

January 5, 2025


Oral arguments in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization were held three years ago, in December 2021. Before the 2022 Supreme Court decision, a limited exception statewide ban on abortion care was rendered law in Texas. Maternal mortality rates in the state have increased by 56%, between 2019 and the end of 2021 (over five times greater than the national average).  These numbers are supported by Texas’ own Maternal Mortality and Morbidity Review Committee.  The leadership of the same committee announced it will “skip” an in-depth review of these rates for the years 2022/23.



From here on in the world is dry

reservoirs just wading pools choked with duckweed

abandoned beehives grow dull and papery

their cells lacquered with remains of nectar


Driving on, struggling to stay awake, counting

farm roads she crosses from Amarillo to Colorado,

she sees braided rivers give up their strain 

as they yield to the yellowing soil


She sings to herself, her Beatitudes:

“Blessed is the struggle, this aching dry land crawl,

For I will save my life and more by this test.

Blessed are the doctors who risk redresses of the arrogant,

For they will live in the shrinking province of the Just on Earth,

Blessed are the labors I gave and those I cannot,

For I alone will own my work and my grief.”


Vincent Hostak is a writer and media producer from Texas now living near the Front Range of Colorado south of Denver. His recently published poems are found in the journals Sonder Midwest and the Langdon Review of the Arts in Texas and as a contributor to the TPA. He writes & produces the podcast: Crossings-the Refugee Experience in America.

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