women when we rise

women when we rise

women, when we rise we rise heaving
panting, pushing, screaming like
big bang birthing, when we rise
women, when we rise we rise against
pain, through pain, through pain,
through more pain than one body
can stand it seems

women, when we rise it’s never just
one resurrection it’s always
bringing more life with it,
pulling the whole underworld along
it’s bursting tombs into
seedlings and springtime and
singing tomorrows when we rise

women, when we rise truth mountains
shadow-darkened for centuries
burst watermelon and high-lit ribs
plain as day for a hundred miles
when we rise
women, when we rise
secrets cry out from crevices
sulphured springs transform to sparkling,
what once was poison now is fuel
for still more rising when we rise

women, when we rise there is no
wind can take us down
tethered as we are to moon and myst’ry
women, when we rise all else is trifled:
all the foulest deeds of greed and war
all fears that spawn them gone
when women find their power

women, when we rise we rise together
out of bones unnamed and cries forgotten
bonded to our cells like
witch to stake, like slave to chain,
like hiroshima vapor to the stone,
like juarez blood to desert sand
but when we rise we bring them every soul
from the first mother forward
and goddess breath will roar from us forever
when we rise

women, when we rise we must not,
cannot, will not be put down again
when women rise
when women—
women rise!

-mary oishi
8 october 2004