I was raised by a community of women.
Women who worked together to make me.
Women whose hands were willing to take care of me
when another couldn’t
Women who spoke with hushed voices, but their
hands spoke the pain they hid
Women whose laughter grimaced the pain of the female
community and restraints of patriarchy.
Together they’ve built and broken…
Together they’ve concealed and revealed…
Together they’ve confronted truths of reality,
Truths that have broken them, truths that have made them
Together they’ve been survivors and warriors
Together they’ve been simple, fragile, WOMAN.
Today, I carry a part of each of them in me.
I am a product of generations of womanly traditions.
I am generations of voices that have been silenced.
I am generations of voices that have screamed and cried out.
I am generations of pain woven into strength.
I am generations of pain felt yes unexpressed
I am generations of laughter, unity and hope,
love both felt and unfelt.
I am in the home cleaning the house, tending the fields, milking the cows, planting the crops,
carrying the water, raising my children and other people’s children.
I am the verbally, physically, sexually, mentally and emotionally abused.
I am the happily married but hurting
I am the single and strong yet searching
I am the vendor, farmer, business woman,
housewife, single mother, sister, daughter,
Sunshine and pain, rain mixed with laughter
I am the complex, simple
Ugly, beautiful, emotional, stubborn,
angry, happy, God-fearing, God forsaken,
typical, unusual…
I am
WOMAN
From a hummingbird,
Nacoya Smith
I’m originally from southcoast St Bess. I consider myself a St Bess/country gal. I’ve been reading for as long I can remember and one author who stuck with me was Dorothy Garlock. I’m a lover of cultures and languages so of course should be no surprise I study a language (Spanish). I love to watch nature and people-gaze; I believe we’re all connected. Personal mantra “stability and change”, in the midst of stability there is change and in the consistency of change there is stability.
hummingbirds 