6.17.23 New Moon
This past week, as my friends and family in Detroit and New York struggled to breath with northern wildfire smoke billowing in, and a record-breaking heatwave hovered over Puerto Rico where I live, I wondered what I had to offer this burning world.
Sitting with my neighbors outside in the darkness of another apagón, I thought about power, and what I had written a few years ago, reflecting on
some public incidence of violence that is now blurred from my memory:
You may think you have no power
against a pipe bomb
But you know how to cook
to transform raw nature
into beloved food
You know how to grow tomatoes
and mend torn clothes
how to crawl in under the sink
to save precious water from waste
You know how to listen
to let buried stories of pain
magnetize a compass of love
You know how to tell a story
its arc curved across seven abuelas
to magically heal a child
You know how to see the moon
by opening the door
such a simple defiance
of walls
You know how to sing
or just hum along
to create universal vibration
resonance
beyond your wildest dreams.
What you know
are the practices of power
Now is your time.
When I think of the practices of power that matter, they are still these: Our ability to create and recreate. To listen and tell stories that echo across time. To see beyond walls of our own construction. To sing. To dream.
Let us go forth in power. Now is our time.
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