This poem is dedicated to the Seattle Older Women's League (OWL). For several years WHEEL homeless women's
organizing group has made a tradition of serving a Mother's Day Brunch for homeless
women. Mother's Day 2000 came during our Tent City 3 campaign. When we said that
we would be unable to organize the brunch that year, OWL
came forward and brought brunch out to the tents.
Mother's Day in Tent City
Are we children on one side of midnight,
adults on the other?
Women until the kindling of one cell,
then instant mothers?
If humanity wants children
we must raise them
in the flesh and the spirit of women,
in the flesh and the spirit of men.
We must all become mothers
to each other
before the womb of the world
will kindle any future.
~Anitra L. Freeman
