By Sandy Hartman
What is your fate among your people?
What is the mark of all your kind?
To this eternal question I answer
I am the daughter of a willful people
Of a nation that struggles always
To find its better side
It dreams that all its citizens are equal
All must be free
Worthy of its knowledge
Worthy of opportunity
Protected by its laws
Deserving
Under laws equal to all
On this, I have considered well
In my world I stand my ground
I am free to come and go
Free to learn and judge with wisdom
I draw my circle close
The choices made are mine
I turn chin high to claim my truth
I walk my way in pride
I am a World Child
Daughter of this rare and wondrous age
A time that comes to some
But not to everyone no, not to everyone
The good and the right
The wrong and the strife from every ancestor
Sing to me and make me bold
The dark strength of Earth
Courses my veins and builds my bones
I breathe the dreams of sunshine and sky
The dust and the rain and winds that blow
Divinity echoes within my Soul
Yet in my heart are chains that still abide
I hear the cry of sisters lost in histories gone
Restless ghosts that never will be known
Innocent Souls forgotten, their stories never told
Their dreams enslaved, their freedoms bound
Trapped in fortune’s chance
Necessity and unforgiving circumstance
Dignity denied
Mistreated, abused, injured, raped
Heaped in unjust shame, given no escape
Helpless, hidden, bargained away
Used for profit, sold
Betrayed, enslaved
Forsaken
Even now too many women smother
In heritage that leaves them mute
Denied the learning of their people
Denied justice
Their freedom shackled
Hopes shattered
Living without honor
Half of All Creation’s children
Robbed of half the sky
I am the daughter of a willful age
A precious breath of freedom
That shines for me, but not for everyone
No, not for everyone
What people can be proud
Of women pressed against their will?
Kept captive by their custom
Forced to struggle all alone
What savage fists dare clinch in pride
Before the face of The Divine
What wayward power’s protection
Will defend the vicious tongues
Of shameful stiff-necked fools
Who excuse their brutish acts as Heaven’s Holy Rule
Who choose to shrug their shoulders in indifference
As they say
“We simply follow custom. This is what we do”
What woman’s words will speak for them
Who come before Creation in the certainty of Judgment
If they dare defend their ruthless slights
And self-promoting righteous might
As they did in life
When they stood against their fellow Souls
And chose to judge them less than worthy
Fools who dared to set the knots and twist the ties
That ensnared those precious lives
Lives beloved of Creation
Other Souls
Who were half of Divinity’s infinite design.
Copyright 5/13
Sandy Hartman
This poem along with a full set of photos and several slide
shows and my audio appear on Sandy Hartman’s site, www.eonwriter.com
Welcome back, Sandy! Another powerful poem. I highly recommend her website:www.eonwriter.com. Read aloud by the poet herself, her masterpieces are even better. Thank you for your insights and undeniable truths!
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