To Mi Alma With Love

These eyes are Norwegian:
changing from green to blue
with the ocean tides in the fjords.
Hiding behind books like the fog
that wraps the cliffs at sunset.

this tongue is Swedish
catching words like fisherman’s nets
tangled and gasping with life.

These lips are French
as lusty and warm as the Riviera;
street cafes and cigarettes
easily getting full or loose
with wine and laughter.

This spirit is German
built back from ashes
not knowing that walls
dont mean strength
till all walls fall.

These hands are Irish
calloused from carrying
too many burdens
that were not my own.

A bloodline;
Norwegian, Swedish, French, German and Irish.

A Bloodline that
does not point to conquistadores, mestizos or maya.

But this soul, esta alma, born of the dust of the Andes;
It has been plundered like the foothill
Minas de oro by those that lust for quick capital.

It has burst its banks in the Amazon spring
carving valles with the tears of Gods
sacrificed and forgotten only to be uncovered again.

You would never know
los secretos I’ve hidden
just behind my ribs
letters from motherless children
memorias of singing to them
under a Mexican moon.

You would never know
the memory of rhythms
I carry en mi cadera
Unable to resistir the down
Beat of drums in salsa,
meregue and bachata
at times lento and sensual
then agile and electrico.

Thighs like united fruit trees
Swelling with heat and the cycles
Of la tierra.
Mouth up turned to the first
lluvia of the summer.

My heart bleeds la pasión
for justice like jungle guerrillas
desperately single-minded
loosing myself to the best intentions.

A skin that sweats the morning
dew on the cacao trees
knowing even the harvest can not
change bullets, stolen lands and unmarked graves.

At night my ears still hear
the victory cries of
Havana Revoluciones.