A day to remember “She”
By Virginia Jasmin Pasalo
THIS poem was written in 22 May 2022. It was not Women’s Day. They say we need not remember women because they are present at every moment, every peaceful encounter, everywhere, especially in places of conflict. They are mostly remembered carrying, nurturing children, the sick, the miserable. A forest is a She, and so is a country, and so is Mother Earth. She is goddess, temptress, wizard, the one who wields a magic wand. She is all that, including the one who tempted Adam to eat an “apple” which I suppose gave him consciousness that the apple got stuck in his throat and never sailed down to his esophagus.
Development institutions, both national and international, often classify women as members of the disadvantaged and vulnerable sector, in the company of children, as victims. But these same institutions, also pay lip service to the fact that She carries half (or more) of the world, without whom, development will never be possible.
She is the sweet song whose interpretation by Elvis Costello makes a good friend, Daisy Langenegger, swoon. Written by Charles Aznavour and Herbert Kretzmer, it was initially released as a single sung by Aznavour in 1974 for “a theme tune for the British TV series Seven Faces of Woman.”
The mine
this is mine, she said
no, this is mine, he said
but you promised, it was mine,
another one countered
on and on, the grueling
backstabbing, counter dealing
on the lode of the mines
till greed were mitigated
satisfying the honor
among the crocodiles
together, they crawled to the river
where the woman was bathing
and piece by piece,
they mined her geography
leaving morsels for the villagers
scrambling for a small bite
nothing was spared, not her heart,
not her hopeful eyes,
or her still pulsating brain
or her full heart-shaped lips
where she nurtured, and kept secret
a most beautiful smile
nothing, nothing was left to be mined
but the tragedy of her broken memory
told, retold, layered, half-forgotten
stories from the eyes of the miners
entombed as history by those
who grabbed and robbed
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