RAINBRINGER
Poems

So I Can Say My Name
     
      I don’t remember
      the stories I have had to do without.
     
      Having never heard the voices of my people,
      I keep asking the earth to give their names.
      Answers slip through my fingers
      because I have lost the bowl
      that could have caught them.
     
      Pretending like everyone else,
      I neglect my kinship with the rain
      that delivers water to hollows in stone.
     
      Repeatedly I beg grey sky to sing me its colors
      so I’ll know where I have come from
      and where to go.
     
      When sunset stains my face, memory returns,
      only to sink out of reach in darkness
      with dreams that might have been shared.
     
      My body wants to listen
      to my ancestors’ feet walking in fields,
      wants to see days and nights passing
      through their eyes long gone.
     
      Lead me to say my name
      so I can no longer forget
      what has always been mine.