Call in the manatee, body scarred, belly full of new life,
Nurse sharks, churning tornados of teeth,
and sting rays with marks like Masai on their backs.
Call in the full moon and a fire of gnarled driftwood,
wreathing.
Call in sea horses, clinging camouflaged to ropes their
bodies mimic,
Cat Spur medicine, guarded by fire ants, to heal the bite of
death.
The heat of flesh on flesh, bodies intertwined, spirits spreading.
You must try to understand each other or the roads will
separate.
Everything with a heartbeat and everything made by hand
has a soul. Be careful what you put your energy into.
Give it as an offering, held by three pillars,
those from the first hearth of creation
in the dark waters of a primordial world.
The deeper into the cave the more devout.
Methods determined by the power of the prayer:
a circle cast in ceramic with obsidian;
a small chip to break perfection;
or absolute destruction, annihilation.
Give blood, the best of the animals,
the pinky of your hand,
and finally the young princess.
Call in the rain in final desperate hope.
Blood of my blood to please the great spirits.
Call in the brown jays, who warn of hunters, snakes and the big
cats,
Howling monkeys battling for territory to embrace the dawn,
The rubber tree oozing latex from machete slices to manifest
America’s destiny.
Call in Conch shells scattered carelessly across the south
blue caye
And bone fish feasting on lobster heads cast away.
Call in Iguanas who cling to facades of fallen jaguar kings—
the faces of rain, of sun, of the tree that spans from
heaven to earth.
Weave the cosmos into colorful bands and blouses.
The universe interconnected in every stitch.
What is time? Not chronological as we force it to be.
Nothing is urgent but the snake’s bite.
The healer clasps her hands around leaves on your wrists,
your head, your heart
and prays.
Whispers, swish, and cluck in ancient tongues of her
ancestors.
The beat is too strong. We must do it again.
Do not touch yourself, the energy will not flow.
She takes fresh boughs from her medicine garden
Sprays alcohol upon them and beats your body
To clear it, to cleanse it of contamination
The Mal de Ojo.
Then smudging, sacred copal. Alone you sit
until the tears come
and flow together in streams down your cheeks
onto the crystal about your throat.
The tears we shed yesterday have become the rain.
She cried once too, she tells you.
The rituals were nearly lost, only her uncle did ceremony
in secret over the mountains.
Dia de los Santos came and she was called
to honor the ancestors in their ruins.
Sadness took her as she envisioned the once flourishing city.
So much lost, so much taken.
Sorrow for the pain of her people.
Then she heard them, conch shells calling,
from the North, the direction of the winds, the messages.
She thought she alone had heard them. But her family was
there,
They felt it too—
A turning, a resurrection, the period of recovery had come.
The words are coming back,
hieroglyphics, inherent understanding from deep within.
Collective rituals that cross modern borders,
rebuilding sacred civilization.
Her tears came often during ritual, a recognition,
A reckoning.
For so long, you did not cry.
But there is purpose in the tears, release.
You are guided by a light. It brought you here.
I can see it
and the soul returning to your face.
Breathe again with the wind.
Call it in.
