from handfuls to coasts, islands to continents

-

our skin

the color of sand

adapts,

shifts, sings sunlight, spring & summer

lingers in autumn

impressed hues shaded by obsidians

i am

ochres, siennas, oxides, burnt umbers,

purples & deep emeralds where blood rivers run

speckles & scarred flesh,

flecked with memories,

and deep lines in the palms of both hands since I was seven

and I imagine what it could be like

to deconstruct the concrete

we inherited - what we were born into,

what was man-made –

so the earth can breath

…not stopping at cracks, or fractals, or rubble,

but pulverizing to dust & grit,

to be carried by wind, by water

or to turn

beneath our weight or by earthquakes,

liberating minerals

from cement

to dance with soil.

on these distant lands

will concrete remember

what it is to be sand?

to be pebbles or deep ocean beds

after medians, barriers, walls,

suffocated stretches

parking lots, foundations of racist statues, capitol buildings, or skyscrapers stroking egos

sands stolen from the opposite side of the ocean

- the edges of our motherlands -

like the eucalyptus, the palms, and the black & brown peoples brought here.

image ID: photo of a riverbed in shallow clear water, a collection of pebbles that are yellow ochres, red oxides, siennas, and umbers are in the middle in the bed of sand, ripples on the water come up from the bottom left corner creating a pattern of light across the sand.

this poem is published in Kapit-Bisig, a zine created by the San Francisco Progressive Filipinx Caucus.