I am speaking the language of curanderas,
old hymns. My family’s prayers
crowd the church.
A throng of stars with a red
super moon hangs above.
A dying man says
we are all divine. We are Gods of earth,
mud watching blue birds
cackle, robins snap black
worms from the damp earth.
Hunger compels us to kill something.
We listen to lyrics
hoping to become civilized and smooth.
Our “I” sits at the periphery of loss.
Stars at the edge of night
form a roof over the Southwest.
Some days we are impatient
with the decaying clay of ourselves.
We are electric charging presences.
Some say our energy moves on,
manifests as something else.
Energy never disappears. We are as branch,
fire and wind. All the while there’s a tornado
stirring in our single heart.