^{On the Anniversary of Hurricane Maria}

I fly in to see for myself
below, blue tarps over the homes of my nation
like those silver blankets that cover the souls
of Mayan and Arawak children locked inside cages
on the US mainland I left behind.

Arriving home, I enter a mass of confusion
plantain crops walloped in their places of birth
five-foot-tall grass rebelliously advancing to heaven
my mother’s lemon tree on her last leg
hunched over, barely breathing.

I witness it for myself
splintered wooden electrical poles
held up by a neighbor’s twine
trees arrowed through one another
now growing sideways, surviving.

Not the palm trees though
the palm trees chose victory or death
no in-between half-hearted living
some growing new hair
others simply guillotined
by Maria’s detonation.

I walk into the new growth of forest
detect the low lamenting sounds of the injured there
witness the anger etched into the undulating
mountains surrounding me in the distance.

I see the US cavalry arrived just in time
Cortez and Columbus repackaged
into a 21st Century nightmare
armies in metallic flying machines
using talking devices, exchanging messages
in a foreign language through invisible airways.

I see the cavalry arrived to help
themselves to the casinos they built
to hurl paper towels at the local mortician
to seize their opportunity to maximize
on the extinction of the natives
keeping them in drawn-out darkness
with no power to run hospitals 
no shelter, with no water.

I cross the land
from West to East, South to North
to see the revelers and the ruined for myself
to lend an ear to survivors and to the dead
see shuttered schools for miles along the route,
I run out of fingers
on which to count them all

               part of the plan to ruin us
               a small voice reminds me.

I walk along the turquoise shore
lined of amputated homes
crumbled fences
collapsed doorways into the sea
inside, bits and pieces of families remain
their vestiges now
across the Atlantic at the opposite end.

Back in Ponce, I sit in my mother’s rocking chair
watch my neighbor’s hummingbirds
who’ve arrived to visit her ruby coral bells
I think of my father’s strength
in his humility, he walked in silence
built a house to withstand
a cyclonic catastrophe.

I’ve seen for myself
the natives are
the majesty of this world
together they’ve cleared the paths
sawing, hewing through mammoth
barriers of deceit and loathing

retrieved their own water
traversing the inundation
of Washington’s elite
that vowed to drown them.

They went about their lives
by the light of a candle
or an old wooden light pole
they stitched back together
with all the love on Earth

maneuvering through a world of cadavers
inside Maria’s eye
amid the tantrums of the privileged
a nation held its ground
now, raises its foundation
of ancestral eminence anew.