women give [and give and give]
voice and expression
to the oppressed.
I find a hunger in my belly for
something of substance. Of value.
That tastes like it smells
and hurts like it bleeds.
For reality, for honesty, for truth.
---------------
your voices echo across
the land and sea into our
conscience and the condition
of your child and your fellow man
tells some truth beyond
me and the sun rises here
just like it might there but
our women rise to the sun
in a different way
we are all rising in the sun
and speaking of the ways in which we
wish to live- like saints we sing
the song of woman or the song
of desperation
we will rise and we will speak of
how the sun rises slowly upon
the backs of the beautiful
bent-double masses of the
world who taste no bread and
work the calluses into their
hands only to find that they
will never taste the extremes
of what it means to be free
she woke with the sun and
painted her lifetime upon the
washing stand while singing
about another land
where the dancers smile
and the coffee is free,
and how the slaves sang
until midnight of the night of
their liberation
she awoke among the undeniable
truths of her life and spoke to
the farthest shores
