The revolution of resurrections

Abuelito prays using galaxies & constellations as prayer beads 2 (Acrylic on gessoed paper 9"X14" 2023)

The wounds are

not mine, not ours

and the wounds unite us

and the walls divide us

How can I heal

when the "they"

continue finding

new ways to make us hurt

new laws to inscribe outlawed

on our bodies

new powers to hold over us

new weaponry to rip our heads off?

I don't want justice

because justice is

private property, landlords, police and barbed wires

I want liberation

as a small mobile paradise

that goes wherever we go

where the "they" are excluded

and never invited

I want my body

as my only earth

and as close to you to me

as the only lunar gravitational pull

out of the imperial solar system

We have enough pores

to absorb

all the stars

and enough prayers

for all the constellations

to be our prayer beads

And I look around

and there is a problem

of who I am sitting with

and dreaming

while my brothers and sisters

are lost on plantations in the central valleys

or in some unimaginable prison cell

where they're tortured

So return the land

to those who work it and

if the land belongs to those who work it

who does the workers belong to?

Instead of spending $200,000 a year

on keeping y relative separated

from his family,

give us those $200,000 a year

to send him to school,

to read books

and write his stories

to accompany the old ones

as punishment

Or build a jail

where there is room

for all of us.

Our soul, our dignity

can never be

crushed

broken

or decimated

but our baodies can and have been.

I want the power

of a revolution of resurrections

to bring back to life

my grandmother

(who loved plants and her children and her children's children)

Bring her back

from the field where she crumpled from a heart attack

Bring back my gradnfather

who died of pesticide poisoning

who could have tended

the fields of maize and sorghum

frijoles, watermelon and squash

a human pollnator

hands and arms outstretched back and at his side

as he rubbed their leaves, stalks, blossoms

commingling the pollen

into the gaping mouths

of organic orgasms

And bring back Coatlicue

the Guadalupe,

who loved a communist

and paid the price of the border

so she can can laugh without fear

drink coffee and talk story all night

The past cannot return

because I carry her

in my bones

in my hair

on my skin

I breathe her through

the five roots of my

lungs

I breathe in

the path to utopia is utopia

I breathe out

no map except our bodies

All I have is my body

I will decide how I live

in order to be in charge of my death

I am the creation

of an enraged love

and a tender fist

that unfurls seeds

and callallies

I used to imaghine

the green bean blossoms

as little humans

with oversized biceps

work was my play

And I would have been happy

to work the land

but the land was treated

just as bad as the labor

So I must learn to be

very still

let the seeds

burst under my skin

to relearn how

maize sprouted

from my grandfather's hands and bodies

plants and prayers flew off

the tongues of my grandmother

Become earth again

Become human again

Stand very still

your heart pounds the rhthym of the world...

August 17, 2024 | Santa Cruz-Oakland WIP