LET YOURSELF NOT DESTROY
2017
Don’t believe it Don’t
believe that you can be
on the earth and not become
the ocean that you don’t have to
completely obliterate
your core that you can ignore
the undulating
desert in your belly
Don’t believe that you can
forget the cactus your fingers—
how they hold up the sky
Pull a mackerel from the mouth
of the Moana
with your bare hands
maybe Split the spine
of a birch on Ester Dome
Honor its rings like veins
like the systems of blood
and breath that keep your body
beating warm like the sacrifice
wood makes for you in winter
Sink your bottom
into Todos Santos beaches
thank the grit
of sand that clings to your flesh
Sit
Listen to the sounds, the glorious
noise of fishermen with their filthy
mouths, the seagulls squawking
thanksgiving for the guts the men
throw from their filthy hands
the same hands that labor and feed
their families their barrio, barely
scraping by same hands
that touch the earth the ways we should
touch bodies when two becomes one:
daily wanting willing to
feel the stick and sweat
Connect See these men
Find their rough and tumble
as wonderful as the waves
See that they are the sea.
Remember you are, too.
I don’t pretend to know anything
about brave except that it’s what
it means to be the red salmon:
willing to be spilled open.
I simply find it intolerable to tolerate
injustice I find it impossible
to build power on another’s possibilities
I find that art is the language
which helps me best
find these guts and bleed
them onto capital and cowardice
remind us that we are
the dirt, the air, the branches reaching,
the crowing morning rooster, the chorus
of dogs barking at sunset The seeds
that plant themselves around us
also grow palms, wild iris
& passion fruit in our souls Hold
onto the motions and colors
of nature Let them go deeply
into you Let them roll their river
out of you Let them live
Let them live Let yourself
not destroy
