Tell a Woman

One billion women rising

Tell a woman that, deep inside,
deep in her heart, where no one can see,
she holds the flame that lights the world.

Tell a woman that no one can ever extinguish that flame.
Not anyone,  be he bigger than her, stronger than her, faster than her,
angrier than her, drunker than her, more convinced he is right.

This flame is our secret, all women’s.  We are born with it.
With this flame, within our hearts, we work two jobs while raising three kids.
And we give them piano lessons.
With this flame, we cross oceans
so our children can grow up strong without stigma.
With this flame, we nurse our elders, and our young ones too,
often at the same time, keeping an eye on bill payments,
scrounging for food and rent.

Tell a woman she has a huge bright flame ready to flare up in her heart,
and she’s not alone.   We all have one,
we who walk tall, and we who are under the thumb,
we who speak here now, and we who have been silenced,
we all share this flame, it’s an eternal flame,
it’s hot, and it’s brilliant, and it never goes away.

Tell a woman, this is our birthright, this is who we are,
we, the women, the people of the womb,
who carry the world, who yearn for love and honor,
who, somewhere deep inside, will never be denied, will never give in.
Tell a woman, this is who we are, all of us aflame, all of us women,
all of us carrying that precious fire
that guides our days, that reminds us of what this life really means,
that shows us its light and tells us how to move,
how to be, how to turn, how to love each day.

Tell a woman, she has a pure flame deep in her heart
that can never be extinguished, that cannot be pushed under,
that can never be broken, that does not bleed away,
that cannot be raped or beaten down,
that can only rise higher, that flares up within us,
and with each step brightens, and lights our way,
brighter and brighter, as we see our flames
more clearly, more loudly, more assuredly, more proudly,
all of us gazing at that brand new day,
not much longer now, just on the horizon,
when we look at a woman and know,
with her light, she leads the way.





Annelinde Metzner
January 25, 2013



"One Billion Rising"
          In conjunction with its 15th anniversary, V-Day, a global activist movement to end violence against women and girls, launched its most ambitious campaign to date -         ONE BILLION RISING. The concept of the campaign is simple. If you take into account the statistic that 1 out of 3 women will experience violence in her lifetime, you are left with the staggering statistic that over 1 billion women on this planet will be impacted by violence. On V-Day's 15th Anniversary, 2.14.13, V-Day is inviting ONE BILLION women and those who love them to WALK OUT, DANCE, RISE UP, and DEMAND an end to this violence. V-Day wants the world to see our collective strength, our numbers, our solidarity across borders.


Watch as Alice Walker explains the beauty of dancing for One Billion Rising.  Look for an event in your community on Valentine's Day, February 14, 2013.  

 

Thank you, Hillary

Hillary Clinton in Ireland, September 2012

A deep relaxation, an exhalation, a gratefulness,
knowing you have been there to represent us,
you, so much a woman, the mother of a woman,
the daughter of a woman, one of us.
Hillary, you inspired us, with your bravery, your clarity,
your firmness, your discernment on the world’s stage.
High up in the echelons, you represented us.  Thank you.
Traveling, traveling, in ease and in strain,
you spoke of Malala and Inez, all our brave women,
at one with our great community, this world.
Hillary, without fear, you went feet first
to the most dangerous places in the world.
Yes, we share your pain, our pain,
we born with a womb, our badge of courage,
our births that say the way will be rough,
the climb uphill all our lives.
We born with a womb, and from a womb,
our daughters, our mothers and ourselves,
know from birth that we must be strong,
we must know our minds and love our bodies,
we must speak for ourselves when our Hillaries are gone,
remembering her and teaching ourselves,
going on, for their sake, for Malala and Wangari,
for all the women who show the way,
to live strong and free, to move as we choose,
to be what we are, to be.

Annelinde Metzner



Click here for an article in the Huffington Post about Hillary's future as a presidential candidate in 2016.  One former aide says, "Never say never."

 

 

The sheer lace curtain

Photo by Ann Laudati

Icy white curves of pure sunshine
come through the white lace curtain
surprised, as if the Sun
had tumbled into a clothes dryer
full of lace undies.
I can’t fully see the day,
She is so veiled, so disguised
in honeycombs of lace,
lace petals of flowers,
filigrees and tendrils,
flirtatious as flickering flame
even though the glass is frozen.
It’s twenty degrees today, even at the beach,
January. A world white as lace,
and hiding something too, maybe hiding a year,
a whole new year, a brand new number,
the world not quite discernible
beyond the sheer lace curtain,
January delicate and lovely, thin as lace.
The Sun, as bright as He can be,
happily cascading into white roses of lace,
caught in time, in January’s sheer wonderment,
the unknowing, the promise of the future,
beyond somewhere, waiting.

Annelinde Metzner     
January 17, 2009

January beach

New Year's Gathering

Candle circle at Hawkscry, New Year's 2012

         “Come, come, whoever you are,
          wanderer, worshiper, lover of leaving.”
 
We come New Year’s day, to Sandy Mush,
that Shangri-la, quiet always, but quieter still, this January day,
the rapeseed fields lying fallow, waiting for Spring’s yellow,
the old dogs and the old farmers beside their wood stoves.

         “Ours is no caravan of despair.”
 
And it isn’t!   Many old friends, one behind the other
to get there for sharing warm food and warm regards,
to share births, deaths, all the new, all the new.
The caravan shifts on the leaf-layered road,
and one tire goes ‘way out over the abyss.
“Stop the car!” and everyone hops out.
What to do?  But a neighbor has a come-along.
This has gone on before, so many times before,
at the end of a long dirt road, where we are our own future,
it’s only us, and what we can do,
stuck on the road in winter.
Twenty arms and hands, a dozen brains
ponder and work, trying this and that,
pulling here and tugging there,
until, voila!  the van is free with its big load,
a wheelchair and four eager passengers.
We’re free!

            “Come yet again, come!”  
   
Arriving up at the top of the road,
laden with food and one more good story,
we eat, hug, regale and gather around the flames, lighting candles for the world,
for our futures and all peoples’, 
for making it one more day in this body.
Out to the woods to dance beneath the grey, bare trees,
for Allah, for God, for the Goddess,
and to remember, as grey winter clouds lumber gloriously across the sky,
we are all here together in this.
We are all one.

          "Come, come, whoever you are,
           come, yet again, come."       (Jelaluddin Rumi)


Annelinde Metzner 
Hawkscry    
January 4, 2012


Many thanks to William and Jane Stanhope for sharing their beautiful land in Sandy Mush, North Carolina for my writing, my spirit and my peace of mind.  


Listen to Annelinde reading "New Year's Gathering" here.
 

Many brains, strong backs and a come-along.