Women in the Middle East
News reports abound
of freedom fighters,
Currently known as rebels,
they are those on the ground,
attempting to overthrow a dictator,
some sort of madman
who doesn’t care how many houses are pummeled
with his rockets,
how many bodies lie lifeless in his city’s streets,
He piles the bodies for all to see.
A widow mourns her husband,
Tells those who are listening
to continue the fight,
She is 7 months pregnant,
Her dead husband killed by a sniper’s bullet,
In his 27th year.
The news is a sea of men’s faces,
the horror unfolds before our eyes,
Men in the streets wounded,
bleeding, chanting,
and I wonder, “Where are the women?”
They are somewhere hiding,
Behind the walls,
clutching their frightened children,
shielding their ears, wiping their tears,
because this is what women do.
This is what we have ALWAYS done,
the nurturing of the race,
And whether or not
It is in our biology,
or imbedded in our DNA,
It is simply the role we have always played,
A pregnant belly, our body changing,
Over the course of a year,
It teaches us certain things,
Preservation of life is encoded, mapped onto,
And merged with, our sense of “self”,
Hundreds of Egyptian women
Poured into the protest on city streets,
Their men derided them,
Beat them down,
Told them to go home – where they belonged,
A Western reporter,
Separated from her colleagues
Is beaten and raped by the “freedom fighters,”
Another woman runs into a Libyan hotel,
Screaming she was held for the last 2 days,
Beaten and raped by government supporters,
We watch her on CNN news,
And as we are watching,
They return, and take her away
In a government car.
Later Libyan reports say she was insane,
And a former prostitute,
And I think, “I will never forget her face.”
World leaders discuss
How many torrents of rockets
Will bring peace in the Middle East,
And I think always,
The stories of women
Are hidden beneath the stories of men,
I can’t even imagine the stories of children
With their mothers, hiding, protecting them,
And I want these to be the headline stories,
The ones to come before the men’s,
But always,
Men are arguing, validating war,
Always, Women suffering,
Children even more.
Doctor Grandma 
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