Blessing
Editor’s Note: This poem was shared during the recent Global Women’s Peace Network USA program on “The Next Generation,” in celebration of Women’s History Month. Watch as the author passionately read the poem aloud during the program, and find the written text below.
Be patient, sister
Your blessing is coming
Wait for it
like summer waits for snow
like desert waits for rain
Be patient, sister, it is coming
As surely as redemption
As fiercely as fire
Feel it in each fertile breath you take
Taste it in each memory of future
you are meant to make
Exhale all your fears into the flames
and let them burn
For as fire burns, it cleanses
And as it cleanses, it restores
So as we store our sorrows in the flames
we release them into the ashes to be reborn
We mourn no more
Long to linger in the past
No longer
for the Future burns before our eyes
with the satisfaction of a Deferred Dream
Realized.
Be patient, sister
your blessing is near
Don’t you know that God counts a woman’s tears?
Replaces each one with holy water
so that every step you take is blessed
Makes miracles out of misery and stress
Bakes bread to feed your soul out of the yeast of your prayers
and the heat of your determination
Woman,
You hold the womb of the world in the palm of your hands
Rub your palms together and
birth nations
Just be patient
Your blessing is coming
© HanaLyn Colvin 2017