Tuesday, March 8, 2022

On International Women's Day: Indran Amirthanayagam

 

On International Women's Day


On this early Spring day in the Beltway I think of all the women

who have woken me up, fed and clothed me, teased and got me

out of bed and into walking shoes, who have inspired my writing

books, who give me a pacific healing embrace when I start to stiffen,

fall into despair; and then I think of women poets who have taught

my lyrics to dance, of Sylvia Plath's rhythms, Emily Dickinson's

ellipses and dashes, of fragments that remain of the enigmatic

Sappho, and then of diplomats and poets, of Rosario Castellanos,

Gabriela Mistral who spread her lyrics in the League of Nations.

So today, friends, I celebrate women who have helped to make

me a poet and diplomat, a boy turned into man, a friend embracing

the child and birth while cries of the murdered are calling out

from the battle fields that engage their troops despite

this day where hope and rhyme entwine.


Indran Amirthanayagam c) March 8, 2022