(Re)Collection
A WGS Quarterly Publication

A wordle of poem below.

Transcribed by Diana Cabcabin

Healing

Middle bridges, meant to be

Face, pushing, boulders

Tenderness, hear, blood

Women, birds, scars

Salve, roots, herbs

Pushing through the soil and reach for the sun

The drumming of our hearts

The voices of our ancestors

The restoration of our vision

Grief

I am broken hearted when

I think about the loss and the waste

It is so devastating

And it is so easy

To feel overwhelmed;

Yet, joined together we harness the energy

And focus the strength of everyone

Who has come before us, present and future

Sadness is there but it doesn’t conquer.

We persist and prevail in our work

For communities across the globe

We must make space for grief –

Give ourselves the time and the quietness necessary

To feel the loss of those we love,

Those who are no longer with us

It is for them that we do the work that we do.

They remind us that live is short and fragile

And moldable,

That we do not have to be victims afraid, paralyzed,

That we must get busy living,

Or get busy dying

The same energy applies to both.

Grief can be a powerful tool,

Like fire if we aren’t afraid

To face it and walk through it

Empowering

I see the women of the communities

We stand in solidarity with

Saying we work for a world free of war

Where women are respected everywhere

And our voices are heard.

Our tenderness respected as strength

Our humility

Our leadership valued and understood

Where we will no longer be ignored

Everyone will hear themselves sing together.

When we step outside of our comfort zone

And reveal our passion to endure,

Teach, protecting and

Pass on the lessons of longevity

For we are the homemakers,

The workers, the culture, bearers,

The children and elders

Injustice

Injustice of so many across the entire world,

All for greed and gold

And it’s never enough,

Never satiated for power,

The need to prove your power in the world

Capitalism, industry, western values are globalized.

The concrete continues to be poured onto

Land that belongs to the people,

The people shall overcome through collective power,

Power to speak truth and overcome injustice

Three hundred years from now

Perhaps injustice will be a thing of the past,

A hazy memory – and there may be a day

When people will realize

That selfish greed and capitalism

Unleashed…leads to destruction.

Wondering

Not understanding, yet beginning to see myself a part of the larger environment,

But why are we here?  We are hear because we were born,

Because we survived, because our ancestors survived, because we remembered

And those memories continue to live in us and will live in our children.

Through generations the history of the land has been evident,

Even to those who have forgotten.  It is our voice that will dissolve historical amnesia.

The truth is buried, often in our hearts; we can open up minds, with our voices,

In song, through music, in the streets.  Women’s voices loud, with strength,

With love, of caring… urge us on…

Survival

Even as we pass away, the land survives

And continues to fight for the right to thrive.

Be it nature, best, person, we well bring balance

To our existence, recognizing that we co-exist

With plants, animals, oceans, and rocks.

Our survival depends on these connections we make

With our planet and we are challenged

Because our land and resources are under siege

And our connections and attempts to connect

Are hindered yet still, we will fight and continue

To fight

Strength

Strength, resilient…generations passing…empowered…working together fore the greater good of all peoples around the world.  Women of Guam, Okinawa, Philippines, Hawaii, Puerto Rice, and The United States connected.

Uniting our voices for a world with policies of peace and prosperity.

Power and energy cultivated out of respect and caring.

Positive change, strength is beauty, resilience in the face of barrenness, destruction of war.

Strength from our ancestors, our angels, our land, our mothers, strength in our tenderness, strength that holds us to the earth, oven and hidden yet felt,

Known.  The strength of women unites all things.

Angry Father

An angry father comes home.  He doesn’t talk much.  Resistance, she responds, she reacts within.

She learns to nurture herself and takes comfort in knowing that she is not alone – her struggle of oppression is common for many of us…it can be overcome.

All of us have anger in our past, and in our present.  From these experiences around us, who is supposed to care for us?  And how do we care for ourselves?  Must we bury our shame in anger, be afraid to be vulnerable, believing the lie that vulnerability is weak,

When in fact, it is quite the opposite!  Our vulnerability is rooted in compassion, empathy, and genuineness.  The reconnection of anger and love, the roots.

Decolonize

Who protects the land, ancestors, our story, our people’s culture, language, traditional ways of knowing? 

What is in our hearts and minds, those of generations to come? 

How do we get freedom to choose to govern ourselves, to be free from the burdens put on us by others?

How do we create our own, sustainable and healthy communities to believe, to dream, to achieve autonomous zones, in heart, mind, spirit, and community?

Our common goal is human dignity, yes we can, yes we are, yes we will. 

Our ways of knowing are valued,

Our wisdom seen as vital to charting future paths. 

Power becomes a force to reckon with. 

Our power fully realized can raise our banner “we will survive for truth is on our side.”

We are the people

Whose history do we honor if we we’re a proud, creative, loving people whose wisdom we inherit?

Who  iIn the age of globalization is “our people?” 

We come together, we create, we remember everyone, all people. 

I am a part of that we

Who resists oppression

And who creates new traditions honoring

Each of our histories and our stories

And that bring us together.

We are more powerful when we are together. 

There is no “I” in we. 

We are always always

Larger than “I”

Let us never forget