An Amazigh Woman

I wrote a poem about all the Amazigh women I have seen and met in Morocco. I can't cut and paste here though so I will have to write it again.

An Amazigh Woman

An Amazigh woman  rises on a dark morning to feed her family sustaining soup or ta'am with ta'loute

She squats  on the cuisine floor to mix tissent, zit and amen to form flat rounds of bread that she kneads and pats with skill.

 She stacks them in blankets to warm and rise. She carries them on her head to the clay oven where they are tended and turned over the flames.


She found her wood and carried it one her back and it is her turn to take care of the oven today.

And then  she hunches down to peel, scrape, cut and chunk the season's vegetables for tagine or couscous.
She salts and spices, oils, waters and heats and leaves it to soften and sweeten.

 An Amazigh woman produces party dishes without writing a list.She works with others in seamless activity. Rkia and Bidda tending tagines and cultivating couscous.

Her daughters, nieces, friends mix together the biscuit and cake things, with no sign of a recipe book. They create doughs for sponges decorated with coconut, jam or pounded coacoa.

 An Amazigh woman goes to her fields to cut plants for her sheep or goats. She feeds them peelings and cores from the meals and takes their milk for her family.

An Amazigh woman  weaves a pattern with needle and thread, adding sparkle and tinkle with silver sequins and keeps the pattern in her head.

An Amazigh woman creates carpets, weaving and knotting with her kin. It is her sofa at the edges of her sitting room in her  mud built home.

An Amazigh woman  rests in prayer, placing the sheepskin east. Her prayer is serene, even in the midst of chaos.

She is amazing.