Maud the Maid

I saw her bucket in hand, standing aside the stage Hidden by the screen from prying eyes. Her face Telling a story of pride and equal shame. I felt rage For suddenly I was looking at mother again. Trace Her line of sight and find a girl, a valedictorian far From the right, uneasy about where her cast eyes Spell in silence. She is afraid of the truth's blind scar, The woman using a screen for vantage and disguise. Not the scholar, young and frightened, is my thesis But the woman behind the screen. Familiar this face, From cradle to struggle of a nation through its crisis; This woman epitomizes the history unsung in the race. Her eyes turned up when whip crack whelped the skin, When children with milk dripping mouth taken away Left her grimace nor groan, but solemn prayer within Her flattened chest, O worn to rest, covenanted a day. Day upon day of the woman has past, and weeks too And months for posturing, and years for academic Class to spins its theories, and denied her voice a due For putting them in paper paradise of dreams. Vortic Agendas that despise the only reality in her eyes. I Must, with mightier than sword, then fight for women Still. We who had nothing before will vaunt to the eye, I grant the waste of freedom, but dread the slow omen. A black man knows where a woman is coming from. I Understand the warrior behind the screen. I greet you, Sister, daughter, mother, wife - and heroine now to die With them already dead but alive, for them alive like you And already dead in the stronger mesh of global revenue. (incomplete)