An ode to women
Sunshine, that’s what she is. Pure, radiant love, that beams from her soul into yours, as she infects you with her charm.
Sunshine that’s what she brings, as her laughter glows through the cracks of your anguish bringing joy and happiness to your gloom and despair.
Okay, okay, so poetry has never been much of my strong point, but I thought I’d try. In South Africa, the 9th of August is Women’s Day; a day in which we are meant to celebrate women and their strength, trials, achievements and beauty. It has now extended into a month of celebrating women, because as we all know that one day would never be long enough to truly appreciate what the women in our lives have done for us all.
So in honour of all the truly amazing and phenomenal women in South Africa and all around the world, my submission for this week is a poem written by someone more gifted than I am; and a song celebrating women.
Poem for South African Women – written by June Jordan (1936 – 2002)
Our own shadows disappear as the feet of thousands
by the tens of thousands pound the fallow land
into new dust that
rising like a marvellous pollen will be
fertile
even as the first woman whispering
imagination to the trees around her made
for righteous fruit
from such deliberate defence of life
as no other still
will claim inferior to any other safety
in the world
The whispers too they
intimate to the inmost ear of every spirit
now aroused they
carouse in ferocious affirmation
of all peaceable and loving amplitude
sound a certainly unbounded heat
from a baptismal smoke where yes
there will be fire
And the babies cease alarm as mothers
raising arms
and heart high as the stars so far unseen
nevertheless hurl into the universe
a moving force
irreversible as light years
travelling to the open eye
And who will join this standing up
and the ones who stood without sweet company
will sing and sing
back into the mountains and
if necessary
even under the sea:
we are the ones we have been waiting for.
I Am Woman – Lyrics by Helen Reddy and Ray Burton
I am woman, hear me roar
In numbers too big to ignore
And I know too much to go back an’ pretend
’cause I’ve heard it all before
And I’ve been down there on the floor
No one’s ever gonna keep me down again
CHORUS
Oh yes I am wise
But it’s wisdom born of pain
Yes, I’ve paid the price
But look how much I gained
If I have to, I can do anything
I am strong (strong)
I am invincible (invincible)
I am woman
You can bend but never break me
’cause it only serves to make me
More determined to achieve my final goal
And I come back even stronger
Not a novice any longer
’cause you’ve deepened the conviction in my soul
Oh yes I am wise
But it’s wisdom born of pain
Yes, I’ve paid the price
But look how much I gained
If I have to I can face anything
I am strong (strong)
I am invincible (invincible)
I am woman
Oh, I am woman
I am invincible
I am strong
