Dr. Ayo Nzinga Poem

the builder & the grapevine by Ayodele Nzinga, MFA, PhD

i send regards to the fig tree

i have been uprooted again

on a new porch sending prayers

by crows to oshun & shango

i whisper to the grape vine

promising it grapes

i am here

you will be cared for as long as

i have in this place

we don't know how long

that will be but tell the

bare apple tree

out back that  i am here

you will be tended

ask the crows they know

tell them to ask the fig tree

it will tell you tales of

the builder set adrift roots

pulled up the road open gypsy

time again oya & the wind travel with

the child of the whirlwind with no resting place

fragmented buried in a million places

still three eyes wide freshly wounded

but not distracted

stone sharpens stone

the builder has been sharpened to

razor clean cut the meat off the bone

so clean it don't bleed sharp

barefoot on rocks wandering the sorrowland

coming to overstanding like a place on the shore

the grapevine knows i will listen

it is old it knows stories about the dirt

what is buried beneath it it knows

it has been waiting for someone to listen

i am a listener

here is closer to the water

i feel it

underwater ocean child growing

on the side of a stone hard to kill

like the grapevine & the apple tree

like the fig tree & lottie's bell tree the builder has

learned about being left behind

fending for self

how to build on shifting ground

to leave signs of passing

to pack the tent leave in the night

to preach on the shore in the morning

like sun rising

depend on my ascending

i send my regards to the fig tree & ask

that it tell stories of me

me of the everywhere like tales of

geronimo & sitting bull

leaning on diaspora nothing else can

hold the journey of blistered feet

sore souls the consuming hiraeth grown in rented rooms

landless dreams carried in dark bodies

like beating hearts

the builder has learned to practice flowing like

water planted in determination

rising like the sun disrupting the notion of

boundaries sacrosanct  an institution without

borders bond by only natures law

a phenomenon intent upon thriving

the builder has planted

to be pulled like a weed

carried seeds planted again

harvesting the wind & planting

dreams of fire in it

the crows know

they carry the tale

Ayodele Nzinga, MFA, PhD