BIRTHDAY POEM FOR CAROLYN McDADE


Mosquitoes the size of
dragonflies. Their whine keeps
time with the beat of my heart,
a heart enlarged with love and
gratitude for this time, this place,
these women.

These women.

Each an unforgettable story told
in her own voice. A song soaring on
pelicans' wings. A tree whose roots
embrace the land they love.

We gather on the shores of a lake
carved by glaciers' fingers, held
in the undulating arms of hills
painted green by spring rains.

We sing in ways new yet old,
ways that generations of women
have sung their lives.

We sing on the land where
First Nations women sang and
danced, worked and loved.

It is their voices we hear in the
wind-whispers of the grass, their
wisdom that grounds us in all
that has come before, their hope
that allows us to envision a future
free of arrogance, of greed, of war.

Here to celebrate our sister Carolyn's
70th birthday, we find ourselves
celebrating the wonder of all.

It is OUR birthdays we celebrate...
the birthing of the not-yet,
of defiance and hope,
of the long conversation between
persistence and impatience,
of comprehensive compassion,
of anger in the service of change.

For, as Joan says, "Once one knows,
there's no unknowing."

So, dear sister in the struggle,
faithful woman of the long voice,
beloved friend, Carolyn,
thank you for the years past
and the years to come.

We say YES!

Patricia Lay-Dorsey
Continent In Song Village
Qu'Appelle Valley, Saskatchewan
June 14-20, 2005



photos by Patricia and friends