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A Candle Does Not Lose Its Flame…


Fellow woman
Look at yourself
Not your children
Or your husband
Not at your lack of abundance
Or dire circumstance.
Stand in front of the mirror
Look into the eyes looking back.
Take a good look at you.


Look at your fellow woman
Feel her, her joy and pain.
Close your eyes and breathe her air
Her perfumed presence in the boardroom
By the lake as she does her wash,
As she moulds futures in the classroom
Walk in her shoes.
Look at her in the mirror
Be her


Lift her up, fellow woman
Lift her high
For in her poverty is her strength
In her fear, her greatest triumph
In her misfortune, her determination
For when she faces the odds
Her strength comes to maturation
And she takes another hopeless day
And holds it close to her breast


Lift her up!
Lift up that woman in the mirror
Yes, that woman in the street
In politics or in the slum
Like the rain sustains life
Her blood births
And nurtures
Remember, fellow woman
A candle does not lose its flame
When it lights another candle

Written by Akinyi

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