My call from the springtime fastness of Corrogue this International Women's Day. Giving voice and presence to this day of action.

 

The Day Without Women

8th March 2017

 

Do you feel the throbbing presence

in the absence

at desks, shop tills, the echoing corridors?

 

Is it less quiet on

this Day of Disquiet

for the mostly silenced majority?

 

Do you miss the scent of a woman

in fresh laundry, scoured toilet, the refuse

replaced with the smell of order.

 

Do you taste our juicy stew and dumplings

simmering in the crock pot for 6pm,

the cinnamon sweet apple crumble in the oven?

 

What do you see today in this

sea of  red shoes, shirts, scarves,

sweaters, dresses?

 

What came first –

the rooster, the hen or the egg?

Well, surely, the egg!

 

Nestled in my great, great grandmother’s belly

was the ova of this discontent

dreaming me,

 

dreaming of parting a path

on this See Red Day

towards the promised land of equality

 

for Sarah, for Hagar, for Eve and Lilith,

for all their daughters.

for you, girlfriend, and for me.