reconciliation

let me be the woman, ugly, shamed, in a strange
	place, who lives with mirrors anyway

let me be the woman who need not connect with
	love, and feel weak, and feel needy, appalled

let me be the woman who can hug her hedgehog
	pains to her like thorns, and not mind

let me be the one who can 
	move and bend, whip with the wind, not against it

let me be the woman who finds herself
	far down, in the snow, where the silence reigns

let me be the one alone, orphan, unwanted,
	unnoticed, extranneous, who walks upright

let me be that woman with the stilted bones
	and the mind's shavings, stepping over her own wood

let me be the land that the plough finds
	in winter, and turns it well enough for spring

let me be living land that fruits and bears
	welcoming all weathers as harvest food

let me be a woman, a sowing woman
	with seed that yields enough for God

let me be that woman who stood at the well,
	drew water, baked bread, stemmed the flood

let me be the one who looked with open eyes
	on life, atoned, and understood

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