International Women’s Day 8th
March 2016
Who would you choose to be?
To dance like
Markova or Fonteyn
Showing such
strength and beauty and passion
Having the
tenacity to work and work at the barre
For hours,
for days, for years
To delight by
their movements
Sadly, I lack
the grace.
To be like Ellen McArthur, Clare Francis
Brave and confident, intrepid.
Or to be able to ski or skate
To sky-dive and rock climb
Or race a car round a track
Adrenalin pumping and driving me on.
Alas I am a ninny and a coward.
To have a
vision, to be an entrepreneur
To think
green and start so small
And grow and
grow into The Body Shop
To be an
Anita Roddick
Combining pragmatism
with a dream
But no, I have
never had that energy.
To be a man,
just for one month
To experience
masculine emotions
To accept
different responsibilities
Suffer his
pain – feel a man’s joy
To sing like
Jessye Norman
With the
power and control of an eagle
And the
subtlety of a Chopin prelude
With a voice
that soars like angels
Touching the
hardest heart.
My singing
voice is pleasant enough – no more than that.
To be a
female vanguard
A woman
exploring the world
A traveller –
alone and courageous
A philosopher
and linguist
Freya Stark my
particular heroine
Whose achievements
I could never aspire to.
Barbara Hepworth,
sculptor
Her beautiful
works displayed
In gardens
and at The Tate Gallery in St.Ives
She made
stone come alive
With a superb
craftsmanship
A possessor
of a unique gift
And to be
admired by many – and me.
Jackie Kay,
Carol Ann Duffy, Charlotte Bronte, Margaret Atwood, Anita Shreve, Isabelle Allende,
Elizabeth Smart, Emily Bronte, Christina Rossetti, Dorothy Parker, Alice
Walker, Emily Dickinson, Jane Austen, Sylvia Plath, Toni Morrison, Angela
Carter, Annie Proulx
Now those are
names
I swoon over
Any one of
them
I would wish
to be
Stirring up
the magic
With the
written word.
The poem, the
short story, the novel
Original women,
clever, creative, romantic women.
Satirical,
fantastical, doomed women.
Which one
should I be?
Jane Eyre is
my favourite book – It has to be Charlotte
But then again
Wuthering Heights – so maybe Emily
And then
Angela writes so wickedly, and so did Dorothy
Perhaps Elizabeth
– By Grand Central Station I sat Down and
Wept
Oh how I love
that slender volume.
And what a
beauty she was also
No, I think
it has to be Carol Ann –
So modern,
her poems so heartbreakingly lovely
Oh to be
Carol Ann
I’m inspired
by her
I delight in
her words
I try to
learn from her
Dreaming of
writing like her
But to be
Duffy, No.
I am me, this
is who I am
I have to be
faithful to
My failings,
my weaknesses
My blessings,
they belong to me
I inhabit
this body
I have a
history, a destiny
From womb to
tomb
Meg Marsden
is my name
It is she I choose
to be.
Friday 4th March 2016/Meg Marsden copyright.
