un momento de ramos*

what if palms were laid out in front of you,
tenderly and intentionally onto the dry, dusty earth
as you rolled forward?
you and all the others,
crammed in a fume-coughing bus,
a communal space for sharp-lined graffiti,
plastic bags of semillas
and fruta con chili,
the cool mountain breeze,
and women offering their laps for the infants of mothers
unable to find a seat.
what if the bus slowed,
acknowledging this foreign, sacred moment?
what if the people craned their necks
out of the bus windows to see?
would the silence be reverent?
or would cheers erupt from those welcoming
this holy bunch of pilgrims?
          would you know then?
that you are perfect.
in your quirks and your defeat.
would you feel yourself coming home
to your own magnificent soul?

*a moment of palms

earth's crammed with heaven*

it is.
i know it
when i watch your green and dusty brown beauty rush past me,
and when i let the cool breeze touch me, and when the pine needle-covered path could trick me into a midwest fall day.
you tell me i can bring some fruta to your home
and maybe i still don't recognize the weight of this compliment.
but never mind the weight of compliments when you hold the weight of a husband who's long gone and the weight of protecting daughters from a people who have suffered enough to now create their own victims.
but the hills are beautiful,
after you catch your breath at the top, kick a few dried cow pies down the slope, and find the loyola center through the binocular lens.
is this life that i taste anything like a charamusca?
unwanted at first for its overbearing flavor but slowly appreciated as the cinnamon of this particular one sets in.
tired, at the end of the day,
we are saying, thank you.
and the holy is now making herself present in the subtleties of language.
somos pobre, you say, they say.
call me by my real  name because my truth lies there.
solidarizarse, i have heard more than once.
why don't we have such a bundle of letters that can lead us to how we must live life?
para lo bueno, no hay dificultad.
si, hay, i say. but what you mean, i sense,
is that the difficult parts are lighter when we choose the journey that leads to life.
and earth is crammed with wrinkled faces,
and tanned skin,
and voices who proudly say, call me Andrecito, my guerilla name.
the water is cold enough to pause your heartbeat
for a moment,
but breathe into it, and it leads you to the cave with little waterfalls within
and rocks covered with the greenest moss,
green enough and soft enough to contemplate for a moment.
the common bush is afire with Your love,
as is the moss-covered rock,
and the wrinkled faces
and bright eyes that hold a history too deep for an afternoon visit.

*from Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Aurora Leigh, Book vii

set this down

little child,

take a deep breath and let your shoulders sink down

and the expectation to carry it all seep out of those tired muscles,

and set this down.

precious one, 

can i tell you now 

that you are good

and kind

and important and

beautiful?

carry it back through the years and

tell her.

tell him.

and set this down.

you, soul, 

with your deepest vacant caverns

and shelves lined with countless unrevealed mysteries,

don't be afraid to hold your pain in empty palms,

and set this down.

the strength lies in your vulnerability.

here

how do we look an "end" in the eye
unblinking.
and say, "i was me, and you were you, and that's all we can ever ask"?
and know that what we held makes itself eternal in some deep and secure (i pray) recesses in our souls.
and know joy and trust.
and feel our shoes filled with lightness as they dance forward, and as wind's invisible fingers urge us onward.
may we move and remember. always.

a december day

sully wrote "thank you" on her back.
and i say "thank you" to the day.
thank you for a morning conversation with marta about the fuerza of women.
thank you skype, for taking me straight to the kitchen where i too can smell the sweet kuchen baking.
thank you beth for giving voice to us all through photography and for the fire that walked with me down to the UCA,
for random parades and a chapel filled with white flowers that smelled like easter.
thank you for challenging us with, how can we listen to a poor baby if we're surrounded by luxury?
thank you for burritos, beer, and double waffle cones,
for gaudy christmas decorations and conversations on concrete steps.
thank you for skinned palms and community to come home to.
and thank you for scary movies that aren't so scary after all.

buzzwords of privilege

oven
taxi rides
antiguo cuscatlan

in an instant, unnoticed privilege can suddenly make itself clear.
     and heavy.

endless flight/2

walking the streets, this time she's not alone. the city's crammed with noise that rushes by in a flurry of exhaust fumes and noise that doesn't move, calling out from tiendas and bouncing back and forth across pupusa-filled planchas. but it's the colors that she feels the most. and the heat. so bold and bright, the colors almost beg to be noticed. and she wonders, is it only possible to see all this once? to see it like the first time, burning with newness and intensity so that edges are sharper and eyes are wider, soaking in a periphery that's greater than the average iris will allow. i know photoreceptors adapt to light and dark. maybe they adapt to familiar too. it's never black and white though because the moments of seeing still catch me off guard with their starkness. it comes in a rapid burst and just as quickly leaves me in amazement.
     in wonder.
          in sadness sometimes.
and mostly with a desire to prep my eyes, to wake them up in the morning, to remind them that they just never know the hour.