Self Esteem

She rises, she rises like the sun that knows no shame, this woman-teacher-poet-mother-flame, her soul vast as the sky that holds all storms yet gentle as the dewdrop kissing the earth at dawn. O Universe, behold your daughter who has learned the sacred secret whispered by the wind, that worth is not a treasure buried deep but seed-song scattered wide like prayers across the hungry soil of sleeping hearts. For thirty-five years, she has danced this divine dance, her feet steady as mountains, swift as rivers, Her hands, like mother birds preparing nests, for 131,000 dreams to take their flight toward horizons bright with possibility. They spoke their "no's" like thunder without rain, but she said ‘oh’, she became the monsoon miracle, teaching girls to read is like learning to breathe, writing policies like love letters to generations yet unborn. Her kitchen table glows like a temple altar where the sacred and the daily merge, stirring soup and stirring revolution with the same blessed hands, like prayer and practice. She rises, she rises, phenomenal woman, her self-esteem flowing deep as Ganga's grace, not hoarded like misers count their gold but poured like oil upon the lamps of those who thought their light had died. The eternal sings through her: I am not what I grasp but what I give, not what I hold but what I release like is, birds in the morning to fill the sky with songs of freedom. Like the underground river feeding the surface springs, never asking why?