From Doan Ket
By Meridel Le Sueur
I saw the women of he earth rising on horizons of nitrogen.
I saw the women of the earth coming toward each other
With praise and heat
without reservations of space.
All shining and alight in solidarity.
Transforming the wound into bread and children.
In a new abundance, a global summer.
Tall and crying out in song we arise in mass meadows.
We will run to the living hills with our seed.
We will redeem all hostages.
We will light the bowl of life
We will light singing
across all seas
The resonance of the song of woman,
lifted green, alive
in the solidarity of the communal love.
Uncovering the illumined fruit
the flying pollen
in the thighs of golden bees
We bring to you our fire
We pledge to you our guerrilla
fight against the predators of our country.
We come with thunder
Lightning on our skin,
Roaring womb singing
Our sisters
Singing.
Choruses of millions
Singing
Published in Rites of Ancient Ripening ©1975 Meridel LeSueur
Meridel LeSueur (1900-1996) is a Minnesota writer who, when she began to achieve national recognition through her writing, was blacklisted. For more than seventy years, the Minnesota-based writer and activist was a voice for oppressed peoples worldwide. Beginning in the 1920s, she championed the struggles of workers against the capitalist economy, the efforts of women to find their voices and their power, the rights of American Indians to their lands and their cultures, and environmental causes.