Women’s History Month 2004—Spoken Word and Poetry

Women's History Month 2004:
Spoken Word and Poetry

Girlchild by Michelle Sewell
The Healing by Celise
Grandmother's Clothes by Sharan Strange
and Soul-mate: an Invocation by Kupenda Auset

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Girl Child
By Michelle Sewell

Tonight a girl child will be violated and her mother will chose the violator over her, and a woman will be beaten within an inch of her life and her sister will tell her "You can't stay here. I've got problems of my own"

I woke up this morning with worry on my mind. And as I read my morning paper—there it was. A baby girl—just a few hours old—was left in a desert—because one child is the law of the land and her parents wanted their first born to be a boy! As I read the rest of the story my sadness grew deep because I know no one will miss her, there will be no CNN newsbreak or search parties. And the only evidence of her existence, the bloody sheets that laid witness at her birth, will soon be tossed out with the rest of the day's trash. And for some reason—that fact—totally blows my mind!

See I am a firstborn girl child, the daughter of a seventh born girl child and my mother like her mother made the same promise: You will always find favor. But as I think about that abandoned baby girl swaddled in rags with a small portion of food, by her side, in case someone found her. I can only wonder where is her favor.

But before I pass judgment on this foreign land and its people—I know I don't have to look any further than the metro section of the same paper to find examples of how we've failed and abandoned our own baby girls.

But as my day goes on I find myself obsessing about the complexities of being a girl child. Mingled with the pink and lace are the heart stopping moments that make it unclear if we'll make it to the other side. As I sit at my desk, my pen poised, I fantasize about creating a practical guide. Tucked away for special emergencies that can only be deciphered by girl child eyes.

Chapter one.
Baby girl, as you pack your bags for your life travels—please don't forget your heart song and your North Star. You'll need them both.
The chapter on self esteem would read:
There's no need to live a life of quiet desperation. Dream Big! Take up as much room as you need. Girl! Take up as much room as you want.
Of course there would be a chapter on fashion:
And the print would be extra large to get this critical point across.
Child, you are more than your size six hipster jeans. Sure you look cute in them but you'll need more than that…
When girl child falters and can't find her way, she can search out the chapter on endurance and there'll she'd find this message:
There will be ports in the storm.
Drop your anchor sometimes.
Sit long enough to let someone scratch the worry out your head
and give you a bath in scented water.

And before I forget—drop the title of super woman.
She's like Santa Claus—she doesn't exist.

Of course when girl child gets too busy to read the whole book she can flip to the appendix and look up a subject as she needs.
Under relationships:
Sex does not equal love

Under hunting:
You are not prey!

Under money—which incidentally—by the time you're 34—can easily be cross referenced with relationships.
If you don't work you don't eat.

But somewhere around the chapter on super models—I realize this could go on forever. So I stop, regroup and think—what am I really trying to say.
I guess it's as simple as this:
Beautiful baby girl, you are not disposable.
Your life should not begin and end in the same 24 hour day.
Everything humanly possible should be done to preserve your life force.
There is something amazingly unique about a child born a girl.

And I promise – you will always find favor.

The Healing
By Celise

Women heal

Our touch
Our strength
Our passion
Our WOMB
It heals

We heal generations
You heal worlds
I heal nations

And here
So clear in the eyes of our children
Through the spirits of our men

Here, there is a healing
Birthed by I—A woman
With the magnificence of women
Before me

With the greatness of those past
Who now stand high
Tall
Above my being looking down
Proud

Amazed as I—A woman
And you—A woman
And we—Pass on the healing

Nurturing
Fruits of PEACE
Fruits of LOVE
Fruits of COURAGE
Fruits of TRUTH
Fruits of GLORY
Fruits of VICTORY
Fruits of POWER

From Sierre Leone and back again
To Cuba and beyond
Through Haiti and over

Yes, I
I am a woman
I heal

And, at times
Even I need a healing
So with my arms stretched far and wide
I reach out to embrace a healer
To have the healing washed over me
Down deep inside of me
To replenish my
HEALING POWERS
So that I—A woman
Can continue the healing
Through
My nations
My worlds
My generations
My loves

WOMAN

Grandmother's Clothes
by Sharan Strange

The green paisley dress lasted
years past 5th grade. My hair
in neatly braided rows, and the glasses
askew on my nose remind me
of you, doggedly rethreading the Singer,
aligning pieces of cloth with
the care and precision of a physician
resetting bones, sometimes until
dawn, like a herald, roused you.

Homemade yellow Easter and school
pageant outfits, later showing up
at knees, cuffs, as cleaning rags,
swatches in a quilt's design.
Gleaming baptism robes, stark
and clean as I thought your soul must be.
Graduation sleeves that winged me
out into the world, yards of memories
unfolding across your lap.

The year before the polka-dotted
tangerine micro-mini worn to Frankie's
6th birthday—so brief it was transformed
into dust cloth without shredding—I ran
the block to grandparents', your arms
a haven, his shotgun a remedy to
Daddy's anger. He'd stabbed Mama, sliced
red poppies cradling baby sister,
six months in the womb. I didn't stop
to look for blood, gone from my mother's face,
which bobbed and floated, pale and luminous as
the naked kitchen bulb glaring behind
my father's head. I couldn't get near the knife.

Mother and child survived,
so you buried it with your anger.
The dress? Buried too—
or burned—the only one lost it seems.
Some things, you said, I just won't hold on to.

Soul-mate: An Invocation
By Kupenda Auset

Pray with me.
I need you in this day
To hold in your palms
My open hands.

Pray with me:

Creator,
God of our ancestors,
Come by here my Lord,
Come by here.

Pray with me
Meditate on these minutes
trust in you
then, you with me
let's pray together
our love
let's pray together
our love
let's pray together
our love:

Give us this day,
Mother/Father/God,
that we have witnessed
Our soulmate
that we have recognized
Out life's companion
that we asked for
each other.

Let us see by knowing—
That our prayers
Have been answered
Let our miry clay duet
Be the sign we waited for.

That you gave him to
me and me to he
let us be/loved
together in your name.

Multiply our love
our lives, our love,
the gifts we bear

Love shines through
Each chakra
Love be known
With the oil of our
Love's anointing

Let our love
Let our love be so
holy
that our chants and
incantations quiver

And, my love,
come holy,
come to my river and
be baptized in my love

Pray with me
             But the greatest of these
Pray with me
             But the greatest of these
             Is love

Kum bah yah, my Lord
Kum bah yah,
             Pray with me,
Kum bah yah, my Lord
Kum bah yah,
             I need you in this day
Kum bah yah, my Lord
Kum bah yah,
             To hold in your palms
Ohhh Lo-ord, Kum bah yah,
             My open hands.

-- March 15, 2004

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Women's History Month 2004: Spoken Word and Poetry

Women's History Month 2004:
Spoken Word and Poetry