When did I accept the identity of an object waiting to be claimed?
or a victim, waiting to be saved?
When did I learn to define my worth by what I do?
or whether I am witnessed?
I knew a rage once that used to claw upward toward my throat, desperate to meet whatever wizard or poet there that could give it a voice.
Where did all that anger go?
The anger of every woman preceding me recognizing the beginnings of shame taking root.
The anger of a deeper, wilder, freer and truer force, that first held witness to these lies and struggled to lift my hands into fists.
What would my Grandmother tell me? The one who claimed the only power she found left in her own ashes and flew from her body?
How would one who chose death, suggest life?
I do not speak lightly or with ill intent but with earnest gravity.
I wish I knew my Grandmother.
A woman who is now being defined by her youthful poetry over her last action.
A woman who fought for her beliefs in a context which preferred she not speak them.
A child that grew up during the Depression.
A concert violinist who sold her instrument and raised 7 sons… who buried 2.
Anna Cecile Elliot.
A woman I am so often compared to with little regard for how that comparison might land upon my shoulders.
I can list off the few attributes I know of, but I will never know my Grandmother.
I will never know the stories she might have told.
I will never hear her advice.
I will never feel her hands, her embrace or look into her eyes.
I have an old school photo and a couple of poems.
And I have her spirit in me, and she’s telling me to raise my fists.
or a victim, waiting to be saved?
When did I learn to define my worth by what I do?
or whether I am witnessed?
I knew a rage once that used to claw upward toward my throat, desperate to meet whatever wizard or poet there that could give it a voice.
Where did all that anger go?
The anger of every woman preceding me recognizing the beginnings of shame taking root.
The anger of a deeper, wilder, freer and truer force, that first held witness to these lies and struggled to lift my hands into fists.
What would my Grandmother tell me? The one who claimed the only power she found left in her own ashes and flew from her body?
How would one who chose death, suggest life?
I do not speak lightly or with ill intent but with earnest gravity.
I wish I knew my Grandmother.
A woman who is now being defined by her youthful poetry over her last action.
A woman who fought for her beliefs in a context which preferred she not speak them.
A child that grew up during the Depression.
A concert violinist who sold her instrument and raised 7 sons… who buried 2.
Anna Cecile Elliot.
A woman I am so often compared to with little regard for how that comparison might land upon my shoulders.
I can list off the few attributes I know of, but I will never know my Grandmother.
I will never know the stories she might have told.
I will never hear her advice.
I will never feel her hands, her embrace or look into her eyes.
I have an old school photo and a couple of poems.
And I have her spirit in me, and she’s telling me to raise my fists.
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