Drops of Color/ Definition of a Woman

Ketanji Brown Jackson
The 116th Associate Justice of the Untied States Supreme Court
Definition of a Woman

Let us begin with a fresh slate.
Our ‘ribs’ are uniquely our own.
Our physical attributes simply
do not define our brand
of how we are ‘made-up.’

I am fashioned and created 
from a Source who designs
all life in goodness, harmony, and
loving-kindness.

Women have a place
beyond the roles ‘She’ has been ascribed.
The masculine nature, its divine essence,
does not have a right to 
lay claim or set boundaries on the feminine nature.

A woman grows and becomes herself
like a tree planted beside restful waters.
Yet, even restful waters are stirred
when storms arrive.

The tree learns to thrive in difficult
moments and this, too, defines a woman.

A woman is strong and resilient
—if she chooses jeans, T-shirt and
high-top sneakers…so be it.

If later she places pearls around her neck,
drapes herself in a dashing dress which accompany
four inch heels…so be it.

A woman’s love is fierce
—if she has children, help the soul who
attempts to remove them from her nest

—if the woman does not have children,
trust, her feminine nature will pass
through any storm to reach out to a 
child in need, in want, in wonder.

A woman’s inclination invests in birth.
She is a life-giver,
and she has the God-given capacity
to choose what is right for her own body.

A woman carries both
feminine and masculine qualities
within herself
—just like her many loving brethren.

A woman loves to be comforted and
she loves to comfort.

When a man holds a door for her
—the gesture received in gladness.
It is not that she cannot open 
her own entryway
—it is the warmth of the expression.
A woman knows and understands
—she appreciates.

She, too, washes the stains of tears
that fall from men broken by pain
—men who fall into her arms
for solace at loss, illness,
senseless sufferings.

A woman is so many wondrous
expressions
—she is not a label expected to follow
guidelines on being
—she is a creative expression
of a smattering of colors
expressing themselves on a matte
—a work of art eliciting
a manifestation of endless meanings.

A woman cannot be defined.
Words cannot explain
the holy wanderer she is.
She walks awakening this world
with her ‘Yes’ to life.

She lives.  She moves.
Her being cannot be contained
—her lips worth kissing,
and her actions leave the Universe
BREATHLESS.

Define woman…she is the half
of a whole.

She who IS
cannot be anything else
but who she has been designed to be.
Cage her—she will still sing.
Bury her— she will rise.
Love her—she will give birth
again and again.

A woman is Creation
—pregnant with life
in its fullness.