Walk gently here, careful how and where you step
For here, where girls discarded like candy wrappers,
Where female foetuses destroyed in the still of night
Wrapped in ragged shawls or torn scarves
Are left to be devoured by wild animals
In the jungle of survival,
Or drowned in rivers
Not fortunate enough to be rescued
Like Moses in the bulrushes.
I am she who
Born free in the land of the free
Speaks for them.
In that same country, in a hospitalÂ
바카라˜New Hospital for Women,바카라™
I opened my eyes to my first cry
As a 바카라˜new woman.바카라™
Later I would rename the hospital
바카라˜Hospital for New Women.바카라™
In my mind alone, of course,
Some things are prophetic, time makes those revelations.
A poet with a different philosophy
Entered the room
Listened to my first breaths
Cradled me in his arms
Breathed a name on me
Speaking it quietly, almost a whisper
Yet, loud enough for all to hear.
Mother was deaf to my cries,
She had hemorrhaged badly,Â
Father rejoiced at the birth
Of a girl, his girl
A daughter, born in the land of the free.
He believed his daughter was a gift from his God
She would be named *Kavita, symbolically.
His joy would shower poems on herÂ
While others with girl-children
Knit their brows, puzzled.
Is he crazy, a little touched in the head?
Maybe his poetry made a fool out of him.
What shall I protest?
A girl wanted in a country
Where girls are unwanted?
He wanted me, and took me home
A girl, his daughter, his first-born.
Indian sweets were distributed
Neighbors raised their eyebrows
Surprised, but with silent voices.
바카라˜Light-skinned, and hair of golden curls
At least she will not have much trouble
Finding a marriage partner,바카라™ they said
바카라˜We바카라™ll have to check her height and cooking skills,바카라™
My darker skinned friends taunted and teasedÂ
While Michael Jackson later sang
바카라œIt don바카라™t matter if you바카라™re black or white.바카라™바카라™
My aunts and grandmothers
Simply prayed I would be like Ruth and like Esther.
May all fathers be poets.
And all aunts and grandmothers pray prayersÂ
For their girls to be women of faith and character
Loved for their hearts and minds
Not their colour.
I want to go home to this
Way of life, this kind of land.
*Kavita is Sanskrit for poem
Copyright Kavita 2020
(First published in the Kali Project)
