Her New Story

She is rising, she is rising up and out

of the stuckness of her yesterdays.

She will slip off the cloak

of smallness and drape, adorn, bless

and blanket herself in her own brand of bigness.

She will surrender the suffocating squeeze

of conformity, the dizzying race to nowhere -

she will stop waiting for someone else's hand

to show her the way only she - only she

can know. She will stop waiting. Period.

She will remember that all

she has been chasing

rests, rests here, here where feet

kiss fertile ground, here -

where body beats and breathes

and breathes

and breathes.

She will have the audacity to take up space,

to follow the trail of her own wild longings -

to be herself, all of herself. Only herself.

She will invite you to join her.

She is rising. She is rising up and out and through

the door that has always been hers

to open. She will remember and remember again

that she belongs. That she belongs to herself.

She will remember that she is necessary.

She will insist, she will persist -

she will not take no for an answer. She will be her own

savior, her own superhero, her own guide,

her own guru. With the help

of her sisters, of course.

She will follow her own rhythms,

her own reasons - she will slip into

the new, the never before. She will plant

herself firmly and decidedly

in her own certain skin.

She will bow to the crooked, winding ways

that led her from there to here. She will bow to each

of her sisters, to all women and girls - to all beings

everywhere. She will promise to hold

her own hand forever. She will promise

to hold yours too.

She will listen to the wisdom of rivers

and wildflowers, to the great, growling hunger

deep, deep in her belly. She will listen

to the silent places between - between

then and now, between there

and here, between this word

and the next. She will write

a new story, a story

that begins and ends

with love.

She is rising. She is rising up and out

of the stuckness of her yesterdays.

Dear Sisters, do you hear her? Come, she calls -

let us say each other's names,

let us reimagine, let us gather,

grow, build, become - let us become

the roaring wildfire

that burns, that burns the small away -

let us rise, let us rise

together. Together

let us rise.