A Candle Does Not Lose Its Flame…

Fellow woman,
look at yourself.
Not your children
or your husband;
not at your lack of abundance
or circumstance.
Stand in front of the mirror,
look into the eyes looking back.
Take a good look at you.

Look at your fellow woman.
Feel her, her joys and pain.
Close your eyes and breathe her.
Her perfumed presence in the boardroom,
by the lake as she does her wash,
as she moulds futures in the classroom.
Walk in her shoes.
Look at her in the mirror.
Be her.

Lift her up, fellow woman
Lift her on high
For in her poverty is her strength,
in her fear, her greatest triumph;
in her misfortune, her determination.
For when she faces the odds,
her strength comes to maturation
and she takes another hopeless day
and holds it close to her breast

Lift her up!
Lift up that woman in the mirror
Yes, that woman in the street,
in politics, in the slum.
Like the rain sustains life,
her blood births
and nurtures.
Remember, fellow woman
one candle does not lose its flame
when it lights another candle

PoP © 23 Feb 07