I am leaving in a week to return to home-home Minnesota. I want to acknowledge my Sister Elsa Hiwet Hidaru’s kindness and generosity in making this once in a lifetime experience possible. I hope all of you, my family and friends, would send loving and healing energy to her.
As you will see from the poem I post, I am not the only one to whom she is profoundly good. I feel she is reflective of what is often so typical of women’s presence in the world: sustaining, creating, nurturing, transforming, confronting, modeling courage and a sense of justice in the face what often looks like a tsunami of racial, political, sexual and economic oppression. Elsa is a very successful business woman who also several years ago committed to raise two orphaned black boys here in Ethiopia.
Witnessing what I have in my Ethiopian home with Elsa and other relatives, along with what I have seen in the streets and countryside has been so moving. I have often found myself wiping tears from my eyes. I am so clear my tears are only of personal value to keep from being overwhelmed. I want my tears to water action and compassion toward all humans and the gift of this Creation. Below I post my poem in honor of Elsa and the family, community and culture that birthed her.
~***~
ELSA
*
Woman-Atlas
Holding up several worlds at once,
Of Family,
Of Friends,
& those who labor.
If you look for sweat, muscle
& physical brawn
You won’t see what’s really
Goin’ on,
What’s happening,
What’s contemplated & lifted,
What’s beautified & gifted,
What’s planted & pressed,
What’s possible & prevented,
What’s gathered,
fed,
clothed,
And Loved.
Thousands of divine Mothers
Arrive here through you,
Let it flow and let it go,
Through you, not from you.
Don’t be drained
By your
Fierce, healing, sustaining, transforming
Caressing-kind…ness
Don’t drag along things better left behind…
the stress.
Keep it simple
In this swirling mad…ness
Breathe…
Your center point
Is in the eye of the storm,
There you are reborn.
My sister
Elsa…
I love you.
~***~
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