carrying the banner
well then no choice:
you go forward, with your comrades
at times scarcely able to crawl
you are an ant, clutching between hard jaws
like a huge sail, a leaf twice your size
or a great yellow petal;
a mother cat, carrying her kittens
one after another from refuge to refuge –
what is there you have not carried
on your back and in your belly
caravel swollen with cargo?
brave little pennants
crow’s-nest high and fluttering
before the wind
like your hair ribbons
when you were ten and running to school
when you were ten and scared to be late
when you were ten and running for joy
with the wind tangled
in your hair ribbons
now
at times you break into a run, banners held high
and the throats of your comrades singing and shouting
like birds
like thunder
you are thousands and your strength is invincible
Mandy Macdonald is an Australian writer, translator and editor living in Aberdeen. She has been writing poems for as long as she can remember, but no-one else knew until very recently. She has had poems published in Poetry Scotland, Pushing Out the Boat, and Haiku Scotland. ‘Carrying the banner’ was originally written for the Feminists in Resistance in Honduras and has been published in the newsletter of the Central America Women’s Network.