It is summer.
And I am skinny dipping in waves of blue light
It is hot that year
I lift my arms upwards to the sky in delightful exultation
Each month as always I bleed,
Sweat clammies up my hands, my legs, my back
I wait for the next word, the next theory, the next answer that will guide me to revolution
And I yell and scream in protests
Sing and discuss at sit ins and roadsides, on the floors of dirty apartments, in kitchens stacked with art.
But each escapes me, holds to me deceptive answers that fall apart even as I cling to them
Clutch them tightly in my fist - holding them as though they might be some map for future living
Autumn golden embers burn to dust my answers, steal their glow and gently the breeze lifts them from hands
I fight to reclaim words, take back my language - but those too lie in ruins at my feet,
Man, woman, progress, equality, independence, victory, the nurturing soul of womanhood
We fight for each - and even as I struggle to lift them back to their place on the branches of the trees of my world,
The red and gold leaves, one next to the other - as Autumn chimes in
Falls those leaves, those words, those ideas,
Even as I catch them from the breeze they crumble in my hand - beautiful for a shimemring, glittering second before each is revealed to be just a leaf -- an Autumn leaf -- with a season and a point of departure.
So now I sit in winter - and still each month I bleed.