Text:

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My mother's hips,
Struck through with lightning lines,
The marks that show how she gave life to me;

And in her fist where veins run clear and blue

She still holds my tiny hand in hers.

 

Palm to palm -

Love is passed

From palm to palm.

 

Now I hold my mother’s hand in mine,
And I will hold my daughter's hand like she held mine,

And on and on,
We form a chain -
We do not know whose hands have touched our own,

Whose hands we hold,
Or who will hold our hands in eighty years,
But we have always known this to be true:

 

We take our leave with handfuls of love,

Passed from palm to palm.

-Anna Leader

 

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I asked Anna, my good friend and frequent collaborator, to write in celebration of the shared knowledge of womxn across time and place. The result was this beautiful text. For Anna, “our connection is wisdom that we’re born with, and even babies know it— that’s why they grab our fingers.”

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