A PLEA TO THE ANCESTORS

I.

Have you ever seen the sun
moments before it's blinked out by the sea?
On the horizon

a muted dome suspended
on air, as if nothing else matters
until dusk settles and night returns.

Have you ever sensed that moment
before this darkness?
In its weight

is a certain potency,
not like the song of tree frogs,
more like the opening of the earth beneath your feet.

II.

On a cliff immobile against the crash,
on an island growing from itself,
shark god meets fire. Here, I start to believe
(as spirit guides lead me).

But the birth - as they say - is difficult.

I stand, as before
empty palms facing skyward,
elbows pointing to the ground.
In my mind I run free
through groves and feathers,

vermillion against the azure of the sea.
I look forward always
the ancestors have taught us,
don't turn your back against the ocean.
But the stories and stones,

my amulets for protection,
are hidden from phantoms I must face.
I stand still, as before, afraid,
unable to see clearly.
Mom, I'm not yet ready.

III.

Here at the edge
where land meets air meets water
I see grandmas face at the end.
This I know to be a dream.
See, I wasn't there.
She did not hold on for my arrival.
She called
but I could not run fast enough.
At least I see her
even if only when I sleep.

IV.

Each morning I awaken,
run through routines.
I undress, shower, iron

and change into the clothes I wear for most of the day.
I glance at the direction of your picture

my eyes

swing instead to your granddaughter's photo

The one who looks like your son, my brother.

But even through all this
through all the obvious threads,
I still don't recognize what I see.

V.

I knit
I stitch
one a day
and remember
your body
not moving
wedged between
cement and rock wall
where bamboo pipe
is skewered annually
days before the rains come
for ground water to to well up into
to slake the thirst of 4 children
to water calla lillies, flowers for the dead.

VI.

Sometimes I try to hear the language of children,
the forced laughter of bound throats,
the smile of those weary to the bone.
Sometimes I try to envision the dew on plants
whose names I don't recall.

They've been replaced by exotic sounds:
cabbage, lettuce, beans.
In the remembering,
I lose the sense of that time, when we -- humanity, the earth
when we were all in balance.

I no longer listen to the songs
of rain on grass.