You can borrow my strength
in moments like these
you need not ask
my prayer flies off
off of the tiny mounts
that are my lips
onto you

Hear me when I cannot speak to you
don’t you ever let anyone not even me make you feel like your not entitled to make mistakes

You are far too precious to think actions and events define you,
you define and give meaning to them

long live the birds that migrate
and the people who follow

long live the black bears that adopt
the orphan cubs

long live the grey wolves that repopulate
north of Los Angeles

long live the human kin that stand
next to each other

to protest tyrants, oligarchs, and kings

Mid stride my insides
rattle and my smaller and larger
intestine begins to soften

I walk; a bag of bones
clacking in winter

you must look at things for what they truly are
just as naturally as sunset comes to the day
you will face night; call it “night” no need to wrap it up and make it tidy

silence
has never suited young mouths
at least not these

Again the string pulls
tugging at me
sometimes at the most random of times
like now

Your beauty was not invented your beauty was given

Given at birth when you opened your eyes
present before your name was lined up in any mind
a truth that is what your beauty is

I think of my shrink
and think of my friends
and I think of everyone
who told me to erase someone from my life
to be brave
but now I understand
forgiveness is greater
and that I should always trust my heart
no degrees in human psychology ,no pep talks, no one else’s guidance will do
at some point your being is your only compass

drift into sleep and wake to a new day
there is no need to worry or carry heavy thoughts
let your body dissolve into the calm of your breath

You are the last rose in autumn before winter
on cold night bright defying the muted sky

I am the light and I am the dark
I am the keeper and shepard of all things,
For I am you, as you are me
And in this world of forgetting
It is profound to remember.

there was never a willingness to communicate always a distance always a trying to guess and understand

how can anything end up well when you do not communicate
when misunderstandings are what make up your whole story

how can you really know?
or why did you never want to know ?

were you looking for evidence
were you looking for reasons

Did you finally find them amongst all the actions you never asked about ?
Or Coiled around all the feelings you never voiced ? The anger, the sorrow, the missing,the failure,the hurt, the righteousness, the apathy and the lingering love

did you ever want them?
was ignoring a strategy ?


what was your intention ?

1.
It felt like crossing      
all things cross, right?

2.
It has been many years since we have walked through that tunnel
and into this land
where the hands of spirits became the wings of ancestors over us
and the quiet inner gust became an orator of truth  

Truthteller could you tell me again my name
They have given me so many on the northern journey,
disguised me to be one of the multiple
flickering pixels on a television screen

eyes darker than their own
but who has darker eyes

3.
She is the barefoot daughter of the Pachamama
womxn of many tongues
womxn whose tongue was not cut off
so you hear her sing when the sun comes up
and sway with the blades of grass
onward in the direction of the voices and the wind
and all the things that cry and laugh out loud  

4.
They made you cross, too
and at the same time
But they made you forget
about the birds,
the wind,
your name- our name
and the alphabet
5.
silence is the alphabet used to speak truth  

6.
They made you forget your name.
Ask them your name as you look up at the sky
cloudy or clear
as  children lay silently next to demarcation lines
housed in steel bars
gloomy and lost
ask and listen
to be humbled by your name  

7.
The spirits call again
can you hear them now?

back through the tunnel of innocence,
they whisper your name.

I am standing in the middle of the room surrounded by the ends of yarn *****. Each of them rich in hue, varying in thickness and weight.

They are beautiful to look at and worthy of being knitted as they lay circularly on the floor around me; I know I could make due with any of them. All of them would be good enough,  but then I close my eyes and picture the warmth of your smile and the natural tint of your lips coalescing with your aura –I know which thread to pull.

You who came on ships to this continent, you whose family ached for a beginning. I ask you to stand in front of your ancestors as they reached  for promise & solace on this land and ask them to leave at the dock.  Why are your immigrant roots more legitimate than any others? Why should it be ? Is it because you enslaved bodies to built your wealth, or stole land from others to construct your suburbs if this is the reason you claim this land to be yours
what glory are you defending?

My friends keep counting the red flags and leaving them on my desk inside little transparent ziplock bags.