POEM: The Beginning of Her Power

The little child sits under a tree with a book,

Thinking about her future while the pages told the past.

The thought of millions dying has her shook,

The idea of being either effect or cause has her aghast.

She looks up at the tree, and thinks of stories now dead:

The snake that tempted the first lady with an apple,

And the other apple that fell on Sir Newton’s head.

The lab and the chapel wage a never-ending battle.

The numbers assisting scientific correlation

Are the same used to count, grade, rate, and state income.

The letters that build faith around God’s way of creation

Are the same used to build intelligence and create wisdom.

The child looks at them all arranged in different order,

Confused as to how this determined if she was smart.

It is then that she realizes the honor, the power

The government gave her to tear their own system apart.

The 0 on her paper can cause her to be Minister for Education.

The rejected letter can cause her to own multi-business firms.

She will soon learn that intelligence is gained for exploitation

And that the clean Cabinet, in fact, has dangerous germs.

Who said that her gender didn’t have rights to fix history?

Who said she was too weak to be in front of every strong man?

Who made her image one of submission, yet still one of trickery?

Who doomed her to have a big mouth, but no big voice to demand?

Her mind is made up; she vows to be the future woman’s savior.

The leaves swirl around her while she grips her only weapon.

By assassinating hesitation and threatening failure,

A girl of gold with an iron fist became the system’s next felon.