Surviving California

O California, tell me,
what has been buried
 
beneath you?
: My ancestral bone
 
and tongue and your veins
that I string like beads
 
around my neck.
Here on the mountainside
 
I am draped in your fibers,
I am listening for your voice
 
on the wind, where I once
thought I heard you whisper.
 
O California, I stood
at the podium you erected
 
but no one listened to my song.
Is my throat no longer the incubator
 
of your rock-slide voice?
Am I no longer your reparations
 
puppet? If I could survive it,
I would gather my things:
 
acorn mush and basket hat
and bundle of juncus drying
 
on the dash of my Ford Fiesta.
If I could survive it, I would dig
 
my history from your chest,
California, I would pull it warm
 
and beating from this ground.
Would I not have then seized my own
 
breast? We are made from the same soil.
O California, I know you hear it too.
 
The way the poppies rustle
in the wind, they sound like a chorus
 
of breath. My people are inhaling,
California. My people are opening
 
their mouths to sing.