My Poetry

** dont know if i posted this before here...if i have not, then its about time...***

if my poetry is filled with women,
it is only because the branches of my life
were tended and mended and caressed by them
even before the body of my wood was still a stalk.

like you i was a seed inside a woman
and from the moment i sprouted
from the shell of her womb
i had set my roots to dig deep
into the soil of my life, past layers
after layers of stony indifference
and shallow water
to drink from the mouth of this earth.

under the sky of women's love
my branches were free to seek out
the layers between myself and the sky,
in the garden of women's love
they guided my roots
to sink even deeper
and not to wander wide.

there was a woman whose smiles and eyes
flashed like white stars as she named for me
the constellations in the sky,
Orion and Sirius, of what i would have
to bear, major and minor. there was
a woman who spoke to me
in meter and rhyme,
who fed me my first sweet fruits of metaphors
whose aroma and flavors i could still taste even now.
there was a woman who tucked me
between warm bed sheets and blankets,
soft pillows on my head, like her breast,
so that i could dream and in the morning
be set free to discover who i am to be.

father is only a name
i barely remember. brother
is the son of my uncle and aunt.

if there is so many women in my poetry
it is only because i have been loved
by plenty as i have loved and lost many.
from women springs
the blossom of my summer laughter
even if my hands bore down on them
soft as autumn winds
with the silence of winter.

there will always be women
in my poetry for i know
with a rooted certainty as deep as my roots
that when i could no longer smile
nor sing to the wind nor feel the moist
of the earth, when i have forgotten my name
for the windows of my eyes had witnessed
their final silent sunset,
there would be women,
it would be a woman
even if i no longer have my poetry,
who would shed and share her warmth
from the tears and her arms
for me.

bakers...

"your poetry does not belong to you.
they belong to those who need them"

and so sisters and brothers
let us craft
with clean hands and choice ingredients
the bread of poetry we bake.

You do not know the farmer in the field,
Dirty toes and fingernails, skin
The color of brown earth baked by the sun,
The beast of burden who bore
the onslaught of the season
to give us clean white rice.

Silkworms do not feed on silk,
But the mulberry tree, jaws chomping leaves
So it may spin us softness. The bees do not only
Gather nectar, but incessant wings visit
Flower after flower so they may pollinate.

Each of us should be humble
as the farmer, voracious as the worm,
Generous as the bee.
Our fingers should set off
towards the highest and ripest fruits,
The sweetest,
Wash them with clean water
So that others may partake
and be filled.

We are farmers ourselves,
The world may not notice us, may believe
They need
Us not, but they feed on our harvest.

We may be damned, who
"worship a savage god who destroys them
without making them mad first"
but our hands reveal what is lost
among the heaps of metals, plastics and foam,
damned,
but our roots are deep in the earth, feeding,
as we ourselves feed on humble hands,
voracious jaws,
incessant wings.

Sisters and brothers, I call on you,
Let us with clean hands and clear eyes
Bake the bread of our poetry.