AIDS BABY

If I were different

I would be another child,

Who would react warmly when my mother smiled.

Maybe someone would hold me, speak in a loving tone,

Maybe then my parents would have taken me home.

I saw her face once,

but the glass frame between us might just as well

have been a brick wall

I lifted my hand

In my incoherent language I started to call.

She winced, my love denied.

I let my hand fall to my side.

She walked away, I do not know her name,

She left me,

a symbol of her shame.

In my infant's body an adult sickness does rage,

it tears throughout my body,

it takes no heed of my age.

I fear the darkness,

even in the light

I feel lonely,

too weak to face this fight.

I do not blame anybody,

but I need to know:

is this my fault?

But things are as they are

I'm not just another child

I'm this disease's victim.

Without cause, without trial.

I lie in this cot

And wait for someone to understand

It's not medicine I want,

I just need someone to hold my hand.

                                                       AW

                                                                  With permission

WOMEN CHANGING THE WORLD

So;
The great Moses stood
  towering in stature, powerful in might
    casting rods, turning snakes; calling forth clouds
       and hail; reddening the deep river to blood

And freeing the Israelites.

Freed from bondage;
  freed from slavery.
    Bonded into relationship, and love with,
       YHWH.

And changed our world.

And yet . . .
   without women, this great leader
     would not have called; and cast; and reddened.
        He would never have been.

He would have died with the others.

As he floated in woven reed basket
   Alone and scared and longing for his mother
      His infant wails above the rustling of the water over the
        pebbles and past rushes and stalking ibis

His mother watched, the sacrifice made. His life over her love.

Not alone; no, not uncared for.
  Twice his little craft had almost turned over
    His sister Miriam had rushed out and righted it
       Heart hammering; it was a death sentence

To care for such a babe. Yet she dared. A sister's love.

Two women, twice over.
  A mother, a sister. Saving the babe
      And yet a third had hovered in the background;
         The midwife who had not reported the birth.

Despite the sentence of death for such a thing. A midwife's care.

Three women, thrice over.
  A mother, sister and midwife. Saving the babe.
      And yet, what future for this little infant?
        A gracious princess, daughter of great Ruler, heard the cries.

Basket brought over; baby seen; realisation Hebrew child.

Her duty? To make it known.
  Allow the killing. She did no such thing.
     Loving the infant Moses, she took him to her heart.
        Passed him off as her own. [Took time off court?

Wore larger clothes? Her attendants sworn to secrecy.]

Four  women, four times over. And more.
  A mother, sister, midwife and princess.
    And attendants? How many
      Girls and women were in this conspiracy

At the threat to their own lives? Many, it seems.

Secret kept; babe saved. until the child was full grown.
  Strong prince; dual citizened; finding the truth
    Making the choices; fighting for the right
      And blood on his hands. Flight from wealth. In fear for his life.

The babe grown prince turned fugitive.

Fugitive was given sanctuary in her father's home by Zipporah.
  She loved him, and became wife.
    Kept him safe; cared for him.
      Let him go to his destiny, back to Egypt.

The fugitive turned prophet.

Loving wife added to list of many women.

So; mother, midwife, sister, princess, attendant, wife.

Without the daughter of the Egyptian ruler, the history of our world
  Would have been entirely changed.
    Without womens' intercession, the Ten Commandments
       Would not have been given to our world.

For without the man, no Law would have been received.

As women, it is never known
  When an action God expects of the second created
 
May one day change the destiny of the entire world.

Catherine Nicolette Whittle

         

CONCEPTION

How must it have felt for God
  plummeting through the fathomless universe
    created by Himself as the
      Morning Stars had sung for joy . . .
to seed quietly into the womb
  of a humble human with sandalled feet
    and fingers coarse with dropping water-buckets
      into Nazareth well?

It was such a small space.

He, Who had been used to limitless galaxies
  by Nature outside of, and unruled by, time
Now bound by the span of nine months;
  watching His little fingernails grow
    the miracles of His tiny eyelids form
and the buds of His limbs blossom into hands and feet
  destined to walk the roads, and heal the blind
    and call on the winds Redemption from the
      four corners of the earth.

His form took that of an infant man.

How must it have felt for the Creator
  now joined with created,
    pushing headfirst into a stable world?
The first cries He heard outside the womb
  were His: His Eyes
    bright as stars, discovered the miracle
      of human love; as He looked into the
        eyes of His mother and stepfather.

How must it have been for God ...

Catherine Nicolette Whittle