Post by amelie on Dec 23, 2003 1:42:32 GMT -5
Tonight, I rise in the shadow
Of days passing; from twilight
To dawn I am sentinel to shame;
A splinter of bone, but centrepiece,
Hung about the jewelled throat
Of night; my vigil to watch over
The lost and forsaken ones;
My sisters in revolution.
In Khartoum she cowers, waiting,
Her last hours of innocence;
A child out of childhood,
In terror of the numbing stream
And the sharp stones; the instruments
That will later incise her womanhood;
She is but a chattel to jealousy
And lust of those who covet
And enslave; those who would deny
Sovereignty over her own skin;
But here, her last night in my arms,
Bathed in my tears, I soothe;
We are sisters in revolution.
While alone in the jungle,
A child cries in half forgotten
Remembrance of a mother;
A conscript soldier by day
In Sierra Leone’s infant army;
A tiny warrior, arms too frail
To bear arms, her rifle clutched
For comfort like a doll;
I see myself shone back through
Her ebony tears and lost innocence;
Among the raucous screams of night,
Sleep now, little sister in revolution.
Between Kabul and Kandaha,
On Afghan’s bandit highways,
Among the rocks and cicadas,
Hidden from others and herself
Behind her black veil,
She craves an end to ignorance;
Learning to read and to write
Will be part of her fight,
But tonight, I watch as she
Scratches her name in the sand;
Her first step as a sister in revolution.
Elders called her a whore,
Kicked down the door;
Those same who brought down
The plague in Soweto;
Her infant child poisoned
By South Africa’s piteous holocaust;
Outcast and sentenced at birth;
Not long now before final rest
In her country’s unforgiving earth;
In the bush death pads around her
But tonight sleep at my pale breast;
My sister in revolution;
In Sao Paolo, she skitters
Down alleyway and sewer,
Black blood flowing
From the swift blades
Of the hounding vigilantes;
Running through the night
Among the murderous flavellas,
Escaping a brothers fate;
A gangster at seven,
She knows how to kill,
But I bathe her wounds
In my silver because
She is my sister in revolution.
In Lima’s crowded streets she lurks,
Hidden from all but my glow;
Clumsy rouge and tiny skirt,
Lisping and pouting at strangers;
Laughably gauche at nine years;
Coquettish, but for the
Tragic stare in her eyes;
My sad infant, wanton whore;
My desperate sister in revolution.
We are sisters in revolution;
Across the world my tears
Mist and fog nights’ spectacle;
But though we now weep together,
The darkness will always be ours,
And we will become as crystal,
Hard and bright and many faceted,
And infinite in our resilience;
Step into the silver of my soothing
Moonglow and shine, my little ones;
Shine a billion tiny beacons;
Shine to heaven and beyond,
Till the whole earth and cosmos
Is blinded by your outcry,
And like the moon we will rise;
Every night we will rise;
Forever we will rise;
We will rise;
We will rise.