hope

December 4, 2017Leave a comment

“Life is a constant Advent season: we are continually waiting to become, to discover, to complete, to fulfill. Hope, struggle, fear, expectation and fulfillment are all part of our Advent experience.”

As we enter the season of Advent, there is little to cheer on women incarcerated at Chittenden Regional Correctional Facility. Waiting and preparation are what their time is made of; and for many of them, the hope that originally wove through the fabric of time has simply worn thin.

Holidays can be a particularly tough time inside, as they remind us of family closeness and the warmth of special traditions. Yet in spite of all that seems to separate us from one another, our weekly opportunity to sit together, pen our thoughts and share them openly brings a measure of relief, of closeness … even of hope.

A sampling of the writing from this week follows, written by the artists whose work appears above:

HOPE

Hope has no goddamned wings. Perhaps she had them once, a shining Christmas angel full-feathered. Now she staggers wet cobblestones dripping bloody stumps, stray feathers mutilated with her blood. She weeps and wails, sorry for herself or sorry for me. Hope has no goddamned wings. She doesn’t wear a sparkling samite sheath. She wears tattered rags, too worn and stained to be black, too mottled to be gray. Her muddy petticoat bares torn lace, my Freudian slip showing. Hope has no goddamned wings. Her feet bleed with every halting step, the mean and bitter earth cutting and snatching, tearing and rending tender, once-pristine feet. Hope has no goddamned wings. She was shot down long ago, if she ever flew at all on wings made of the dreams of fools. Hope has no goddamned wings. I’ve never seen her face shining with holy light, only wet with sweat and tears, folded like a Japanese fan with effort. Hope has no goddamned wings. She doesn’t sing a victory tune. She compels me on with a fucking dirge – mine – if I don’t work harder, faster, longer, better … mine, if I’m lucky. Hope has no goddamned wings.

***

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under appreciated

March 27, 2017March 27, 2017Leave a comment

Women are the one-half of humanity most likely to respond to beauty and to little children and young animals…We are the ones who bear the children and know of the effort it takes to raise a child into adulthood. We are the empathic gender … – Jean Shinoda Bolen, Urgent Message from Mother

When … [I] asked [my grandmother] of what in life/was she most proud,/ the older woman answered/each of my children lived to be/an adult. – Cinda Thompson, from ‘Homemaker’

As Women’s History Month comes to a close, we turned to lesser celebrated women in our lives. Not the ones whose praises or political efforts are widely sung; not the ones whose names are on every tongue; not the ones anyone else may even have heard of. No, this week we turned to under appreciated women we have known, attempting to create a tribute of some kind. Whether responding to one of the epigraphs or the opening poem – the brief, tongue-in-cheek ‘Except for Laura Secord’ by Sylvia Maultash Warsh – or to a magazine image of a woman that resonated with us, each one in the circle had a lot to say. About invisibility. Emotional pain. Hard physical labor, psychic wounds, unfulfilled dreams, even the ordinary daily routine of life … so much unspoken and unsung.

But not in our circle! The writing abounds with depth of observation and feeling, a fitting way to bring Women’s History Month to a close. Except for next week, of course!

I AM HERE

The light does not expose what has
been ripped apart within.
You see this shell and it remains intact,
a fortress if you will …
Every curve has been carved to the liking
of the rain.
Every nook has been chiseled from the lining
of a touch.
In one piece, the power is mine to keep.
No window or door opens on command.
I do not take orders.
I do not crumble
I am here.
I am built to last.
AG Continue reading →

a mother’s strength, revisited

May 11, 2012May 12, 20122 Comments

Last night, I sat in a circle with seven women inside Vermont’s women’s prison talking about the roots of Mother’s Day. I read Julia Ward Howe’s “Mother’s Day Proclamation – 1870 (watch dramatic reading here.)

Drawing of poet, anti- slavelry activist and suffragette Julia Ward Howe (Wikipedia)

Most of us have no idea that Mother’s Day originated as a movement toward international peace. Reading Howe’s words today feels as immediate and relevant as if they had just been written. Sadly. And, on a more personal note, finding peace with mother – within and without – continues for many women to be a lifelong struggle.

One of the prompts offered last light was to share a remembered scene of my mother, something learned that I want to take with me today. Read JL’s moving story below. Continue reading →