Araceli Soul Friend
Four Part Bantu. There is sanctuary in different forms. In its original form, Bantu was spoken aloud by a group of people working together. I find freedom in the structure.
Araceli
Soul Friend
1
A sacred measure unequaled
Your home is made of night blooms
These are the places
We anointed together
Footsteps in the dust
Sand on your doorstep
You yourself are a Hummingbird
Flowers storm your home
We cannot capture you
Captivated by reverie
Blaze of Copper Canyon sun
My blood is a tributary home
How you plunge into the blossoms
Sorting these wonders with your thoughtful fingers
A human being planted this
The earth responds, rising like a kiss
Pleasure blooms reaches out towards itself
Underground confluence feeds through caves
Freedom watches color darken
The song cannot be kept
2
Freedom watches color darken
Friendship is eternal
Freedom watches color darken
Birds are falling, empty sky
Freedom watches color darken
Wings are heard throughout the house
Freedom watches color darken
We have no way to speak our language
Freedom watches color darken
Our lives are being hidden
Freedom watches color darken
Our songs have been concealed
Freedom watches color darken
Make forbidden sounds
Freedom watches color darken
Music remembers my bloodline
Freedom watches color darken
I rock myself to sleep
Freedom watches color darken
This is my place of belonging
3
You arrived at the door of our casita with your white dress embroidered by the flower world, hibiscus and lantana vining their way ahead, showing you here. We were brought together, a voice of mahogany and cerulean blue, a bioluminescent journey leading to us. Our path. Our kinship called us. calls us still.
Our psyche floats along these tenuous structures. Over the clear water and Turtle Bay. With the melodious blackbird, mot mot birds, and the bird of a hundred voices. These are oceanic flights. Migrations to find what has been seeking you, waiting to catch a glimmer of your soul.
When you arrived, did you wonder? (I have been in a state of wonder since you arrived.) Did you hover at the threshold, did your hand hesitate before knocking? I never asked. But you did knock, first touch, first glance, eternity.
You did not know where you were going, you did not know me. But when the door opened and I lifted my face to see you, I knew you were my forever friend. And when you said I don’t know why I am here. I turned and spoke, rustling inside as leaves do,
“I know why,” old friend from where we belong. truly.
We do belong. Our footsteps. In the distance, lifelines spinning like the dolphins that you saved. The whales you freed. Their songs alive in you, a part of the harmonizing motion of your stealth intention to do no harm and leave no trace.
Spheres that hold you in their mouth. Safely in the nest of your body.
These arms more ancestral than my ancestors, more blood than the family I've known. I go home with a tenderness toward myself. Towards everything. Mexico, the blood of the land, always a way forward/towards truth. Hawks catching windscapes in Copper Canyon, Mexico, woven in a DNA spiral made of fire, of ancient memories, the place my Grande-Abuelo came from. I find myself in the body of Mexico with radiance against my skin. Ceiba trees, toucans, deserts, and jungles that bloom with birds, fruit, and flowers finding their way to touch this tributary in my veins, bright seeing metronome of ebullient color- of tiempo, a rhythm like drum.
4
Sorting these wonders with your thoughtful fingers
Our lives are being hidden
Flowers storm your home
A human being planted this
Make forbidden sounds
We anointed together
A sacred measure
rock yourself to sleep
We have no way to speak our language
We cannot capture you