Women: mothers, sisters, aunts, spouses, friends, thinkers, creators, innovators, listeners.....

Strong, Resilient, Amazing....

'nuf said.....

Still I Rise
~~Maya Angelou

Watch Maya Angelou read this poem. 

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,

You may trod me in the very dirt   

But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?   

’Cause I walk like I've got oil wells   

Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,   

Just like hopes springing high,   

Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?   

Shoulders falling down like teardrops,   

Weakened by my soulful cries?

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard

’Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines   

Diggin’ in my own backyard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,

You may kill me with your hatefulness,

But still, like air, I’ll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise

That I dance like I've got diamonds   

At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history's shame

I rise

Up from a past that’s rooted in pain

I rise

I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,   

Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise

Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear

I rise

Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,   

I am the dream and the hope of the slave.   

I rise

I rise   

I rise.

Find this poem at the Poetry Foundation site.

Women

~~Langston Hughes

They were women then

My mam's generation

Husky of voice - Stout of

Step

With fists as well as Hands

How they battered down

Doors

And ironed 

Starched white

Shirts

How they led

Armies

Headragged Generals

Across mined

Fields

Booby-trapped

Dirches

To discover

books

Desks

A place for us

How they knew what we 

Must know

Without knowing a page

Of it

Themselves.