Stalwart she stands,
Vestige of an age-old battle.
Despite upheaval and storm,
She can’t be kept down.
The jealous threw rocks in her path,
Easily seen and sidestepped.
Haters threw stones at her,
They reverberated back to them.
They made pits for her to fall in,
She leapt them with a laugh.
They tried to knock her over,
And like a sapling she bent.
They twisted her branches of truth,
Yet the limbs grew straighter still.
A bed of cactus made for her,
She burrowed underneath.
Obscured by darkness,
Her light still shone.
Locusts swirled around her,
They dropped dead in the heat.
They nipped like wild animals,
Their bites were unsound.
Their hot wind singed her skin,
But did not burn through.
Their dry lightning strikes
Did not set fire.
Acrid dust filled her nostrils,
She covered her mouth to breathe.
They covered her with a mudslide,
The rain washed her clean.
When floods carried her downstream,
No water got inside.
The forces of destruction
In fact, create anew.
Earthquake, monsoon and fire
Fail against her will.
When the wildfires go out,
She still stands.
When the flood waters recede,
She still stands.
When the dust devils pass by,
She still stands.
When the earth fills in,
She still stands.
Whom cynics called worthless
She produced more than they.
They said she knew nothing
Yet she wrote a treatise.
Questioning her experience
Her travels rivaled explorers.
Wizened and older
She still stands.
Stabbing the air
With a sting of sage.
Photo Credit: Giuseppe Milo (www.pixael.com) Flickr via Compfight cc
The history of Women in sixty lines. Terrific, tour de force compressing all the anguish, hope, and love into a single piece.