So I was feeling uninspired when I sat down to write today’s verse (a frighteningly common occurrence these days) and I found a voice that has always inspired me laying in wait in the back of my mind.

So in honor of March (it is tomorrow after all) being National Women’s Month, I offer this tribute to one of the great female voices of our time, Ms. Maya Angelou.

May your words and thoughts continue to inspire us to rise.

Phenominity

 

She says she is not swayed,

By transcendental bullshit

No one clips her wings

Or guides the undulations of her hips.

 

She says she cannot be cut,

A skin so thick

It holds the fire,

So nothing gets in, and nothing burns out.

 

She says she made the world,

And shines her womb in darkness.

Where lesser beings cower, confused

She plays the fear of life divine.

 

She says no man will change her

Erase her, degrade her.

She is stronger than mountains

More fluid than sea.

 

She rises like hot mercury

Cresting metallic and fluid,

A danger to hold.

A beaded, magnanimous being.

 

She dives, not falls, precise and sublime

Small but mighty with peregrine speed

A dazzling twirl of feathers and blood

The small bones crushed, all down plucked clean.

 

She says she is no token, no check mark

In insufficient boxes of guilty consciences  

She is a pale rider, a dark horse coming

And Her rendering of justice won’t satisfy your quota.

 

She is no one to own, and no body to claim.

She is envy and apathy, lust and indifference

She is all things, undefined and free

Phenomenal you. Phenomenal me.