Bityah

Bityah - Daughter of God

Worship the Sun-God – Pharoah of Egypt.
Father to me – I am his female child.
Nameless hero – correction: heroine.
Hand my costume to your Sunday School girls.
Princess Divine – I claim my place in story.
Princess Nameless – echoes in the silence
of halls where princesses have no names.
Shall God’s children remain un-named, un-called, un-recognised?
Who will endow me with a name?
A husband, perhaps?
Or not if I bring with me an adopted Jewish babe.
So Midrash tries Bat-YAH (Daughter of – God).
Does naming mean welcome or exile?
And from which God?

Life came to me, not of my womb
But found among the waters’ reeds.
Love came to me, not of romance
But found in compassion’s warm embrace.
Light came to me, not of my initiation
But given of women who risked all they had.
Woman to woman, we work around the world
Finding ways to find the path to bypass obstacles.
Woman to woman, we see life in innocents
And do not privilege those who would cast them out.

Through decades and millennia,
Such children will be murdered.
They will suffer and die from intent or neglect.
As slaves, exiles, refugees, women can take risks for them.

Nameless, all such women may find in Wisdom’s comforting
Solace for tears when children are distressed.
Nameless, each Advocate can bear the Spirit’s will
Into blessing and restoration of such little ones.

Bless the countless nameless nanas, aunties, sisters, minders…
slaves, dames and princesses who care.
Bless them each and all as they see with woman’s eyes
Give them vision deep within their soul.

(Pharoah’s daughter)

(C) 2017, A.Koh-Butler