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Carolyn Evans Campbell: Women at the River

Evans Campbell

Mar 31 2017

1 mins

Women at the River

Women eye each other

on opposite sides of the river.

 

One catches fish in a hide basket;

the other washes her baby’s bottom.

 

One gathers manioc tubers to pound into paste.

The other gathers berries on the river banks

 

They both bury their placentas

or a stillborn at the water’s edge,

 

wash away their blood in the cool water,

sing for their living, keen for their dead.

 

They do not divide the flowing water,
nor the scent of flowers, air, sky, sun.

 

When the dark men scream and cross the river,

they both know where to hide.

 

Carolyn Evans Campbell

 

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