Dear Hermano
Again people are being taken away,
I read the news of kids
like your daughter & son,
like our family, our neighbors,
they wake in a state of temporary,
that lasts longer & longer &
longer than we can remember.
I read online the Smithsonian
purchased children’s drawings
of them in camps: grey beds,
red, black, & orange people in them,
archaeology happening in real time.
Is remembrance joy? I once asked abuela,
she said, “It takes work until it becomes
second nature to you, like breathing,
like knowing the earth gave you a voice
to sing across generations like this:
My voice, the land, my voice, the land
sings my story, my voice
the land, my voice, the land
the clouds look
like they’re going on forever;
do they ever die?
or are they constantly reincarnating?
Life, aqui, a deep possibility,
of memories: a translation of living,
a brief swell of air along a saguaro’s needles,
the way we eat: alive,
but hermano, there are still camps,
& when I’m eating a fruit salad, I crunch
into the body of lettuce, the crispness
has a cost, but all of this always did, remember?
by Moncho Alvarado
from Split This Rock