One Billion Rising - a poem by Noel Canin

For Eve Ensler, for all of us

 

We step into our lives

Bright beads of hope

One woman threaded to another.

 

The thread of hope

Catches on a slash of pain

Breaks, knots, flies up again.

 

The thread of loss

Its gnarled old presence

Calling to the strength of us.

 

The thread of rape

scars corrupt kindness

recovery a long slow shape.

 

The thread is PAIN

The thread is STOP

The thread is SET

 

And we will STAND

Thread by thread, hand by hand

In Africa and in Asia

In the West and in the East

And we will dance

And we will sing

And we will shake the earth

Our very lives depend upon

 

We will give our huge thundering heart

Back its ancient pregnant roar

WE WILL STAND ACROSS THE WORLD

WALK OUT 

DANCE  

RISE UP

SOAR

FOR WE ARE ONE BILLION BIRTHING

One billion rising

Holding the thread

Breaking the chain

 

We are Lucille Clifton’s

“lovely line of women

stepping without fear

or guilt or shame.”

 

We are Eve Ensler’s Girl Cells

And the Song of Songs

The cry of Hallelluya

The transforming of all wrongs

 

we are Mothers and we are Daughters,

Sisters and Wives

we are Everywoman and each Woman

distinct beneath the skies

 

We are beginnings and we are ends

We are wisdom and we are ripe

We are One Billion Rising

A current set alight.

 

Posted on March 4, 2013