Soul songs

How will i meet you, sister?
She sings
For the father's house is foreign now
With stepmother in it

Let's meet at the riverside

they agree finally

It has been twelve years sister
She sings
How many children have you had

My child like the sunlight
Is dead, is gone
Says she in reply

The story is not a new one
It is written in the books
Of how her seven sons were killed
A story known to every child
Who walks these streets

And yet you will not find in the books
The mother's lament
And then her enterprise
To save her son
With help from another woman

When women get together to sing
They sing not of kings and the
Raging fights for kingdoms
But of mothers who mourned
Sisters who cried, sisters who bled
Of wives who knew,
And lovers who warned
Of women who held each other up
And survived and lived

I will raise your child, sister
So he will not die,
Sings she
And i will give you my daughter.

When women got together to sing
They created wise,
Omniscient foremothers
That you wont find
In any printed pages.
Only in the singers' hearts.

What do you do when you are sad
And have no one to pour
Your sadness into?
You could implode,
And
There are ways and ways
To explode

But our wise mothers sang
Of their heart's despair instead

Wait Ram,
She sings,
I will yet meet my father
My mother and my brother
Wait Ram,
For it does not feel like
The time to go
Away from their love

What do you do when
You are wise, you are eager
To make your mark on the world
But
You are hemmed in from all sides?
Restricted, limited, barred?

You sing then,
Songs where you are wise
Compassionate, kind

Of seeta who dreams of a jungle
And knows all is not well
Before she is told so
Of sulochana who knows before
Everyone else
The terrible fate that befalls
Her brave husband
Of yashoda who sacrificed
Her daughter
For the sake of her sister
Who had lost seven sons already

I will raise your child, sister

So he will not die
Sings she
And i will give you my daughter.

Though the books will tell you
That she lay asleep
Innocent, ignorant,
As her daughter was exchanged
For another's son

(She is in prison,
The books will tell you
There is no question
Of her meeting
Her sister at a riverside
And conspiring to save her child

It does not make sense,
And anyway it was god's will
That the eighth child be saved,
The books will tell you.

And yet the women will sing
Of women who saved children.
And if you ask them
How the sisters met
In a dream, maybe?
They will say
So that even in a story
Their agency must exist
Only in dreams and visions.
Only in margins.

But it is in these margins
That you must look
If you want to find
A complete reflection of our world
That art can provide)

Maybe these stories always existed
And were not chosen
By those who were chosen
To write them
Or maybe these stories
Were born out of the frustration
Of our foremothers who had
No other place for agency

But now,
There you have them
Songs of intimacy,
Empathy, strength

How do you protest
Everything the world foists on you?
How do you keep your dignity alive
When you are told you are worthless?
How do you draw the strength to
Assert your confidence?

You create art,
the one thing they cannot control
You go the gods, for you will
Not be blamed for singing of them
And make them in your own image
You create a place a place of power
Even in a world that gives you none
You create agency
In a structure that gives you none
You sing and sing and sing
Until you believe it, and live it
And then you are strong enough
To face anything

Now THAT is my angle
How do you propose
I go about reporting it?