Kate and Jaxon — Image by kenne
All women are wounded
Who gather berries, dibble in mottled light.
Turn white roots from humus, crack nuts on stone
High upland with squinted eye
or rest in cedar shade.
Are wounded
In yurt or frame or mothers
Shopping at the outskirts in fresh clothes.
Whose sick eye bleeds the land,
Fast it! thick throat shields from evil,
you young girls
First caught with the gut-cramp
Gather punk wood and sour leaf
keep out of our kitchen.
Your garden plots, your bright fabrics
Clever ways to carry children
Hide
a beauty like season or tide,
sea cries . . .
— from “Praise for Sick Women” by Gary Snyder