I think this poem is very appropriate to our current examination of !Kung women and continuities of past and present in women’s roles. HM
Women, The Gatherer
by Faith Williams
Lightly she steps across
triangles of jungle glass.
Her young follow. She teaches how to hunt
Country Delight sliced sandwich bread,
how to follow the scent of Flash
lowfat milk. Lounging on nearby cliffs
pale-skinned chiefs display
severed heads.
To her right, sirens bay
of disaster. Darker males
with iron bars escape
in waves. Lightly spring
cockroaches over her feet.
Woman the gatherer embraces
toilet tissue, pale green
sunlight on broad leaves,
forages for jello, for juice
and for cellophane tape
to hold up the jungle sky
one more day.