PROTESTING
I have never liked the word protester. It’s a relative to the word victim. In the balance of power, protesters are losers. Their weakness makes them squeal rather than fight. I say this knowing full well that many protesters would fight, given the right circumstances. But circumstances have a lot to do with whether we are strong or weak. Over time and without the means to fight, a protester can become a whiner. Having said that, the word serves a useful if not necessary purpose and expands our language.
So why am I protesting the word protester? It’s my weakness. One of the poems to be published later this month in the ezine Bloom is a protest. How’s that for shooting myself in the foot?
“Period of Uncertainty” is about the predicament of women with respect to pregnancy and birth control. This protest embodies the ultimate power struggle, one in which a woman is pitted against religious belief as well as her own physiology. It ends with these lines:
Who will speak
of these things
with a tongue untainted by inheritance?
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