Women...?

Women. We are uplifted, we are faultridden, we are guilty, we are innocent. We are life givers and sometimes the guardians of life and of death, placed into caregiving positions by others... sometimes willing, sometimes not. We are judged on our outsides. We are told to age gracefully but if we take a younger lover, we are both doing the wrong thing. If we protest aging, we are seen as desperate and trying to hold on to our youth. If we embrace the next stage, we are told that somehow our worth diminished in the years preceeding.

So we struggle, we are admonished. We figure things out. The men around us. We both suffer and thrive. We journey.. Our baggage becomes lighter or heavier. We journey. I can write a thousand poems as a woman but if my eyes are beautiful they define me, not my work as a poet. We move, we create and if we are smart , we cry together and compare notes like students studying for a difficult test. Welcome to the journey. These poems that I have chosen from the hundreds submitted from around the planet spoke to me. We are sisters you and I. We are gardeners and we need to find each others beauty as women and cultivate the beauty we find in each other.