On being a woman
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Declamação no encontro dos Poets of Mumbai em Andheri West, 29/03/2026.
“A prayer on being a woman”.
Ana Paula Arendt
I thank You, God,
for the grace to be woman born,
for the call into intimacy
if I meet a man,
and for being pushed away, forlorn,
when he has no need of me again…
The grace of being woman still:
to be watched with guarded eyes,
a standing threat of seduction – why?
Even when a child in the square,
carrying no beauty fair,
no redemptive attire.
There is such grace in being woman,
watching women bend and retreat,
forever trying to fit a mold, sooner, and sooner
a cast that never makes them complete…
Seeing many of them sad, yet through the ache
rise once more, and to a new speech wake.
There is much grace in being woman,
in seldom finding a friend
who doesn’t wear a thousand shields,
a thousand masks to defend,
who doesn’t harbor some quiet fear
of being seen with me while I’m near.
To be woman, and now and again
be told where I belong:
the endless debates, the shouting pain,
the right and the wrong—
for or against that the female
can sing her own song.
But to be a woman—a word said softly
like water filling all space,
to be the one who names me,
the one who chooses my place;
the pleasure of distilling earth, becoming salty,
being the river of my own race.
Woman.
With the arc of one thousand tries,
With the light of a thousand moons,
With the strength of a thousand horses,
With the bloom of a thousand flowers.
Woman!
Out of the blue of one thousand skies,
The house of a thousand rooms,
With the fire of one thousand torches,
Forged in this second of a thousand hours.
Woman!
To be woman: to live by our own feeling,
by our emotion, by sweetness that fades,
by flowers that wilt,
by silences we built,
by words that no longer are praised…
To witness today
what has been always on display.
To be woman, not knowing the place
where God will meet me from where He hides,
never knowing the how, the turn, or the pace
when our joy will break and raise the tides…
To be woman—to be mother, fair, just, and kind:
the place where man replenishes his heart and his mind
with comfort, affection, nourishment –or cost,
according to what he asks, he will find
what he deserves the most.
I thank You, God,
for being a woman.
Not only for the honor of conceiving new humans,
I thank You also for all that poised indifference
that cannot remain without serious offense…
They tell often that You have made our own, then,
Your standing beauty, Your enduring strength.
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