Joyce Wilson
Building & Rebuilding
No one walks alone in Cairo now.
The streets are silenced under martial law.
Where freedom in the public space emerged
And was raised up, a banner for the world,
Traditions of building and rebuilding
Live in the makers of the barricades,
The rescuers, dispensers of first aid,
In women now and centuries ahead
Who play their part in unrestricted space
And haul their buckets to the gates to fill,
Who wait, as four regimes have come and gone,
To get on with their lives, not as before
But as they must, to carry water through
The safety zone, and then to carry on.
Privacy of Dreams
Taken from the visions of her dreams
And woven through with filaments of light,
Her garment held the promise of her dreams
Close to her heart, protected from the light.
Her pounding heart defied their pounding boots.
She trusted in the privacy of dreams.
To punish her, they lifted up their boots,
And when they stepped, they trampled on her dreams.
Between Regimes
Was she one of those girls I met that year
On the porch of the massive Citadel?
She'd be nearly forty years old by now,
Much older than the girl in this small screen.
Perhaps her mother was the one I met,
Who must have seen her fall. Perhaps an aunt.
Her sister and her brother must have seen
Her fall, her father must have seen and wept.
What happened to the promise of the spring?
We waited and tomorrow never came.
A weight swings back and forth between regimes,
Each one oppressive, unopposed, and armed,
A different face but with the same decree:
"Whoever is afraid shall stay unharmed."
Evening Into Day
And what of others just like her,
Have they arrived at Tahrir Square
While outside, martial law explodes
In clouds of tear gas, isla-mist
As protestors arrange the cars
Between the hutch and hospital
Not far from guards who order tanks
To flatten makeshift camps and tents?
Have others fallen as she fell
But undetected by the press?
Have they been able to get up,
To make their way to solid ground,
Not to proclaim an evening done
But to announce a day begun?
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The Cheryl Yun Collection is a range of image-based sculptural objects or "products," from handbags to clothing, which simultaneously mirror and subvert fashion and consumer culture to reveal, question, and reevaluate one's relationship to the world.The Cheryl Yun Collection handbag series is handcrafted and features newspaper photographs of tragedy and catastrophe, religious and political conflict, as well as issues of beauty and control, while the Cheryl Yun Collection: lingerie and bathing suits is an image-based series of underwear, which questions the "victims" and "aggressors" of our current political, economic and religious conflicts.
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