The Gift
By Susan Bright
The Gift
how light spins out of stars
and falls into the ravenous caw of life,
the way a parent feeds a child, coaches children's soccer,
runs for office, works for the Sierra Club,
a Dispute Resolution Center -
the way one finds the quiet revolution of a Quaker meeting,
the free salvation of a twelve step program,
social action follows need.
Women, like the essential spin of gravity,
form in circles, say our names, name
our expertise, no one greater than the other, we come -
not for profit, or out of fear, but to create relationship,
community, to become the change we seek.
This is how we do things - a circle, not a ladder,
a seed, not a patent, many truths instead of one.
Our truths are diverse, contradictory, and non-linear.
One has the gift of science, one of art, one of native plants,
one organized the World Court for Women,
one says the million people who marched peacefully
through the open air museum of Florence
demanded corporate accountability.
There is a better way.
The gift informs it.
But it's been plundered -
See how the resource gifts of Africa,
for instance, or South America
by limited liability giant corporations.
Half the labor gifts of the world, women's work,
are unpaid, marginalized, or invisible,
even in movements for social change -
which is unfortunate, because
there is a better
way and women are the map of it.
We rise as if from sleep.
Have you noticed how many people
know the logic of the warrior/robber barons is false?
How often does a parent, seeing children squabble,
encourage them to kill each other? For profit?
There is a better way
and women are the map of it.
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