the longing

it is a pull like a riptide

but gentle 

like the way the smoke frees itself from the solid of incense

like the way the sage leaf transforms into ember

suffocating the unexpecting

healing the one who seeks its medicine

it is like the quarry beneath the water

quiet and waiting to be discovered

taking life from whom did not know it existed

i feel it

i have felt it

the whole of my life

from the moment my father became a stranger

as i went back to the motherland

from the moment i tossed in the waves of separation

where my family was swept away to the sea of time past

from the moment goodbyes were not said but, rather

i was carried into new frontiers by a courageous mother

who sought her own path

seeking more than what she could imagine

finding a comfortable plateau where i could not find peace

and the longing she did not know existed engulfed me

it is in the passion of a first nation song

in the voice of the gitano

in the drum of a cumbia

and the sway of my hips

it is in the beads of the women

in the way they honor the moon

and hold sacred the universe within them

it is in the wind and the leaves

the chirp of the bird that i seek desperately to hear

despite the roar of engines

the noise of horns

the impatience of a people who find me peculiar

it is in the grieving of religions

and their victims

it is in the facing of the apocalypse that has swallowed

so many ancestors

and threatens to swallow pachamama

the longing is in all of this

and i am within it