It's like this
This life's a raging river
Can you look into it without getting swept away?

It's like a three dimensional hologram
A puzzle you can feel
Can you look at the props without identifying?
Can you be here and not be here
Simultaneously?
It takes a mad dakini's rage
To see it, to fight it, to conquer and subdue it
A lioness's persistence
A dove's grace

Can Ifa produce a Buddha? Can Islam yield a Christ? Did Confucius see Sat Nam?
For us all, may truth suffice.

God is in the trees
The air,
the sea--
So full of meaning
Whispers on the breeze
My lotus flower-- rising
His presence-- teeming

Twenty Two

I Am the throne on which He sits
Spirit over matter--
arousal
thick
No lust for this world
No man's…. d--sist
I Am the throne
Revelation…
This

Have you ever had a thought that wasn't your own?
It's like that
Have you ever heard a sound without your ears?
It's like that
Have you ever seen light without your eyes?
It's like that
Have you ever held nothing in your hands and laughed ecstatically?
​It's like that

A Secret Rape in Whydah

I must get back to Dahomey
to Ezili's open arms
away from the indignity of these cotton fields
and the brutality of men
I must get back to Dahomey
To see my sister's midnight skin
To forget the sting of whips and take-- at last
my throne again

my body is here
but I am not
I float above
beyond these constraints
calling this body, this self, to join me
to dance
to sing
to listen
​...from a higher place

I asked my spirit why it came here
wet with tears and body aching
reeling from wanting and fear
--but chanting still

Beginning April 2019