For My Birthday

August 6 is my birthday. I'll be 51. I am, perhaps, the luckiest person on this planet. I hope that for the rest of my days I can keep that perspective.

In honor of my birthday I am celebrating this poem.

Her Head

Near Ekuvukeni,
in Natal, South Africa,
a woman carries water on her head.
After a year of drought,
when one child in three is at risk of death,
she returns from a distant well,
carrying water on her head.

The pumpkins are gone,
the tomatoes withered,
yet the woman carries water on her head.
The cattle kraals are empty,
the goats gaunt-
no milk now for children,
but she is carrying water on her head.

The engineers have reversed the river:
those with power can keep their power,
but one woman is carrying water on her head.
In the homelands, where the dusty crowds
watch the empty roads for water trucks,
one woman trusts herself with treasure,
and carries water on her head.

The sun does not dissuade her,
not the dried earth that blows against her,
as she carries the water on her head.
In a huge and dirty pail,
with an idle handle,
resting on a narrow can,
this woman is carrying water on her head.

This woman, who girds her neck
with safety pins, this one
who carries water on her head,
trusts her own head to bring to her people
what they need now
between life and death:
She is carrying them water on her head.

~ Joan Murray ~

As I turn on the tap, I want to think of this woman. As I join my children in Seattle - all the way across the country - and enjoy a surfeit of Opera, art, good food and family love, I want to think of this woman. As I grow older and feel the aches and pains as my feet, shoulders and neck creak into the morning activity, I want to think of this woman.

No perhaps about it - I am, indeed, the luckiest person on the planet.