We Carry the Earth: A Poem for Lights for Liberty/Families Belong Together Vigil in New Jersey, 7/12/19

As a response to the torturing of children/families who are seeking asylum in the United States, via the for-profit concentration camps placed at the U.S.-Mexico border and throughout the U.S., over 600 cities throughout the world will hold a vigil on Friday, July 12, 2019. I am proud to be part of the movement, thanks to Leah Fowler, Laura Gonzalez, and the Leonia Action Alliance in New Jersey. I've posted the flyers below, both in English and Spanish, for the particular vigil I plan to attend. I've also included the poem that I'll be reading at the event, before the moment of silence. I consider it an honor to have written it specifically for the vigil. As I mentioned, there are events all over the country and planet. Please find your local Lights for Liberty/Families Belong Together Vigil and attend!

We Carry the Earth

by Dr. Grisel Y. Acosta

for Lights for Liberty/Families Belong Together Vigil protesting U.S. concentration camps

We bring the harvest and lay it at an altar

of bread crust, pierced gold earrings, and the bones of our first born

Banana leaves halo the foundation of her body,

we salt the sand she rests upon, sprinkling the mineral from seashells

We pick translucent grapes and squeeze the juice into our downturned

mouths, lay gardenias to frame her death, perfume the pain within our muscles

You see a carcass of stone, barren of life, bleached ossein,

we see the child that ran between the Saguaros and wore red Matucana’s in her hair

*

Cognac woven leather wrapped her brave feet as her toes tipped

sharp rock, skipped over puddles bordering the desert on lucky rain days

White sun burned through camisas de primos, sent to us del Norte,

worn threads unraveling with each day of wear, cada dia without descanso or certainty

Black hair flying like whipping palms, set aflight from much needed breezes

cooled café skin burning cedar brown with each step on the red tawny dirt taking us closer

Cyan sky hovered over our contorted path, twisted like a sapphire river

pooling into a sea of compadres singing the blues at the frontera, asking, “¿Y de donde tu vienes?”

*

It must have been the cold

concrete holding her like iron gate

choking her lungs into frozen

prayer, holding her breath

tight within grey mucus and swollen sacs

bubbles of air that stopped

circulating, like language

words that fall dead on icy ears.

*

mihcacocone

tlahquilli

tlamiz †

*

Se murio de neumonía.

There was no water.

There was no soap.

I was taken away from her.

Lloró en la mañana.

She called to me at 3 am.

I was not there.

You were not there.

We were not there.

We still are not there.

She will continue to cry her song in wind until we are there.

A shriek in the current is free to move, cross, fly beyond the flimsy delusion of barriers.

*

Her body will dust your land which is my land which is our land

We do not carry danger to your door

There is no door

There is no danger

There is only land

There is only earth

We carry this Earth on our skin

We carry it in our lungs

We carry it as our body which holds all bodies

Dirt from many tierras that are one tierra

We set it at an altar

We set you at the altar

We set ourselves at the altar

We set our firstborn at the altar

See the altar

See the Earth

Come carry it with us

Carry the child

Carry the family

Carry the people who are your people who are yourselves

You have been invited.

*

† The words at the center of the poem are in the Nahuatl language. They mean “dead children,” “tomb,” and “this will end.”