Sunday, April 25, 2010

A WOMAN IS NOT A POTTED PLANT

I love the American writer Alice Walker and I like especially her novel 'The Color Purple' which was made into a beautiful film. And I do like many of her poems as well. One of them I admire so much that one day, some time ago I made a vest for my daughter Tanja as a birthday gift,  and wrote the poem  with bleach on the back:

A woman is not a potted Plant 
her roots bound
to the confines
of  her house

a woman is not
a potted plant
her leaves trimmed
to the contours
of her sex

a woman is not
a potted plant
her branches
espaliered
against the fences
of her race
her country
her mother
her man

her trained blossom
turning
this way
& that
to follow
the sun
of whoever feeds
and waters
her

a woman
is wilderness
unbounded
holding the future
between each breath
walking the earth
only because
she is free
and not creepervine
or tree.

Nor even honeysuckle
or bee.

My daughter does not wear this vest any more, but she still loves it and will keep it forever! (Won't you Tani?)

2 comments:

Dawn of LaTouchables said...

Yael, that is stunning! Would look great with jeans, strolling on the beach of some foreign land, barefoot, running into the sunset!

veroque said...

מדהים כל כך!
ואיזה רעיון נפלא זה ללכת עם השיר על הגב.