a faith like yours

Abuela, our common thread, began in my mama’s womb
spun my fetus like a record in her cipher
sampled your stubborn and mixed in her father's posture
Our connection is full circle.
Abuela, you bearer of children
You seer of spirits
you are truly miraculous.
You are the whispers of litanies and white lace tablecloths
your melody is captured
in the spilled candle wax of my skin.

My tongue’s a broken needle,
scratching through the grooves of a lost wisdom
trying to find a faith that beats like yours.
What secrets do your bones hold?
What pattern does your dust settle into when I beat these drums
inside my ribs?
What color was the soil of your grandmother's garden?

Abuela, how did you pray?
Did you store the memory of your creator in strands of hair
tucked into scented soap boxes or
placentas buried under avocado trees?
What reservoir did you pull your faith from?
Was it anything like this gumbo, this sancocho,
this remix of rituals and chants
sampled from muscle memory
and spirits that visit my dreams that I struggle
to stir into discipline
to honor the unseen,
with these shells,     this sage,        these rudraksha and rosary beads
these white candles,            crystals,          statues
sweet water,            honey,              rum,
and sweetgrass?

Abuela, how did you pray
before someone told you who your god should be?
How did you hold the earth in your hands
and thank her for its fecundity?
Did the sea wash away your sadness?
How did you humble yourself before your architect?
Did you lower yourself to your knees,
or rock to the rhythm of ocean waves like I do?
Abuela how did you pray?

Some say faith is for the weak or small-minded,
but I search for your faith everywhere,
need it to reassemble myself whole
from these shards of Chicago ice and island breezes,
so I can rewrite the songs of your silence and pain
your lonely fists, brokenbroken-toothed smile, and burdens
into a medley of mantras.

Wish you could have shown me its shape.
But I know it is here,
in every sacred breath,
in the shadows of trees you visit me in,
in the flicker of flames I stare into, searching for what’s divine.
And I know my body is the instrument my maker uses
to rearrange the broken chords of your history
into a new symphony
for my unborn children’s feet to dance to.
And I see you grandmother,
gathering with your sistren
to chant the names of the living and the dead
and remind us all,
that whether gathered in a marble temple,
around a midnight fire, or block party speakers,
we have always raised our hands to the sky,
trying to touch the invisible force that holds
these cells together into a fragile mass
children of different nations but the same vibration.
We be sound, to beat, to bass, to bone, to flesh.
We be sound, to beat, to bass, to bone, to flesh.
We are all truly miraculous.