Language

Incessant, pushing for the struggle

of re-generation

one hurricane

replaces another

just when the island has been rejuvenated

Living in kaleidoscope cities

urban twisted metal sculptures

piles of moving fabric

& hair

all that hair braided together

like a downtown skyline

woven though towers

with a one-two break-beat

Even these buildings have rhythm

metalworker songs

& saw blade scratches

take them as a symbol

of our rise-up stance

educate our children for a second chance

Ain't no three strikes in the world I live in

We speak forgiveness

like giraffe tongues

long & ready to unravel

We speak change

in the language of the playground

the dialect of freeways and b-ball courts

We understand that nothing happens without a declaration

even independence

So we declare this place our home

and push forward with those who push

& move past the ones whose feet can catch no rhythm

whose lives remain cemented in a history

unchanged plagued by the parliament of greed

We declare an eastern expansion

a manifest where the west must rest

& leave its tired self behind

We speak ancestor codes of

handshake body language

& "brother I got your back"

We speak cross-generational tongues

of bilingual I loves yous

& grand-parental recognition

We break things down to the critical

so that each generation can link to the next

without severance

We speak in the grand tongue humanity

a language without saliva

an underground dialect

whose code will be deciphered

and whose only script will read:

"Daughter, son, we're ready for you."

Source: Somewhere Else (Coffee House Press, www.coffeehousepress.org, 2005)