The Stream She Is
By Camara Gaither
Sometimes I wonder about the story of every stream,
How streams flow without flinching,
Sifting through edge and crevice,
Reshaping the rigidity of rock.
Each century,
The land holds memory
Of a stream’s steadfast rhythm and agile motion,
Leaving soil richer as it passes.
A stream should be witnessed
And honored for its tasks.
And I ask:
Isn’t she the stream?
Spilling life into every living thing.
Isn’t she woven with tenacity and dreams,
With all the miracles her hands can make
And all the challenges her mind can take?
She shifts in shape
Between silk and steel
Calling a world to think and feel,
Teaching us
To comprehend the nuances of strength.
Her limbs are a language of their own
All she can do with joint, tendon, and bone.
She can muscle a microphone.
Every sport becomes her masterclass.
And in the aftermath, ceilings and scoreboards shatter.
Between her labor that is loud among a crowd
And her unwavering work when no one’s watching,
She knows she’s made for movement,
From women's suffrage to game day battle lines.
She does not shrink to survive.
She expands and ascends each day.
She’s known lows and she’s known heights.
And she knows unflinching flight.
Even in settings never designed - with her in mind,
She becomes fluent in every space,
With pioneering feet for every place,
She carves horizons in classrooms and clinics and C-suite roles.
She scaffolds ideas into strategy,
Keeps the workforce in orbit.
Birthing businesses into existence.
And she is the home that we return to - when the day withdraws.
She shapes her children in quiet and chaos.
Yet she does not see herself as singular.
She does not move for her own glory.
She lends herself and her story
To you as a road and a route for what’s possible.
She wants us to stretch skyward
From her shoulders.
What if the world would
Frequent her unfolding?
What if we captured her every chapter,
What if we inscribed her oral archives on the page,
And spoke her truth from a stage?
Help museums guard her memory.
Fight for medical research that saves her.
Protest her erasure.
And when she speaks of her scars, believe her.
And on the ballot, choose her as your leader.
Revere her in every sports arena.
See her in theology.
Write her wisdom into policy.
Show each generation how to hold her name.
Let her story wander like water
Through all terrain.
In joy and pain,
Because survival and stride have made a stream of her.
Steady in flow and force
Is she - all the women who have mothered us
And marched us further,
Passing down courageous narratives as our inheritance.
So we carry her course forward.