To The Young Women Walking The Path Of Feminism
 |
| Aida Santos |
We begin by speaking directly
to the deaths and disappointments.
Here we begin to fill in the spaces
of silence between us. For it is between
these seemingly irreconcilable lines –
the class lines, the politically correct lines,
the daily lines we run down to each other
to keep difference and desire at a distance
– that the truth of our connection lies.
– from The Bridge Called My Back
we begin to love each other
when we begin to make the connection between your empowerment and my disempowerment, we are sisters when we recognize and touch each other’s pains like touching the glow of the moon when it seems so distant and impossible, when we cry because another woman cries, when we hold a grieving sister even when we feel the depths of our own wounding, when we laugh as the tears dry laughing with the going of sorrows, when we break our silences even when it is difficult to find the words that will describe the growing grief of loves lost and lost hopes, when we can paint the sunset in our hearts as we welcome the new day rising through the windows of our own lives, when we see the lives of loneliness and aging and aloneness as our own lives, when we catch each other’s day as if it’s the end of the world for mortality lies at our feet seeking deaths as its agenda for change and rebirth and the future, when we look at the wrinkling faces of our sisters now toiling the soil of their last years and we see our own faces etch in all the wrinkles that we now claim our own, when in the silencing of our voices the human touch of warmth and candor remain like second skin like second voices in our heads like a song like a tune that does not leave our memory, when we touch and we know that the touch has grown eyes that flicker even in the darkest of our nights, when we as we grow and seek new skies, remember those that have gone ahead whether in death or disappointment, when we can claim that each sister’s life is ours too when we become truly human and women, when we can see the shadow behind the smiles or the tears and the joys maybe ours too, when we become human and women
we begin to love each other
to the deaths and disappointments.
Here we begin to fill in the spaces
of silence between us. For it is between
these seemingly irreconcilable lines –
the class lines, the politically correct lines,
the daily lines we run down to each other
to keep difference and desire at a distance
– that the truth of our connection lies.
– from The Bridge Called My Back
we begin to love each other
when we begin to make the connection between your empowerment and my disempowerment, we are sisters when we recognize and touch each other’s pains like touching the glow of the moon when it seems so distant and impossible, when we cry because another woman cries, when we hold a grieving sister even when we feel the depths of our own wounding, when we laugh as the tears dry laughing with the going of sorrows, when we break our silences even when it is difficult to find the words that will describe the growing grief of loves lost and lost hopes, when we can paint the sunset in our hearts as we welcome the new day rising through the windows of our own lives, when we see the lives of loneliness and aging and aloneness as our own lives, when we catch each other’s day as if it’s the end of the world for mortality lies at our feet seeking deaths as its agenda for change and rebirth and the future, when we look at the wrinkling faces of our sisters now toiling the soil of their last years and we see our own faces etch in all the wrinkles that we now claim our own, when in the silencing of our voices the human touch of warmth and candor remain like second skin like second voices in our heads like a song like a tune that does not leave our memory, when we touch and we know that the touch has grown eyes that flicker even in the darkest of our nights, when we as we grow and seek new skies, remember those that have gone ahead whether in death or disappointment, when we can claim that each sister’s life is ours too when we become truly human and women, when we can see the shadow behind the smiles or the tears and the joys maybe ours too, when we become human and women
we begin to love each other
