hold (never sold)
hold (never sold)
i remember your heart
and let me learn your arms
i remember the part
where we are eternal
and let me learn your arms
as cradle as treehouse
where we are eternal
and rooted and rocking and grow
as cradle as treehouse
as live structure reaching
and rooted and rocking and grow
into trees into butterflies
as live structure reaching
through drying out wings
into trees into butterflies
into songs into swings
through drying out wings
i remember the part
into songs into swings
i remember your heart
On the hospital smock that my father had to wear in the hospital on the day (after the all night) that I was born it says “never sold.” This is because the smock is not for sale, it is for hospital use. The smock itself has been present for many moments like this, where someone covers over their regular clothes to be ready to greet the newest among us, a just-born infant. But for me, accountable to my lineage which includes ancestral experience with the violent narrative of sale, of people for sale, my father wearing this smock that says “never sold” when I first get to see him in physical form is also (at least) poetic.
What I see in the photograph is comfort and familiarity. I know this heartbeat. And for me the possibility of infant memory, a form of recognition before the strictures of socialization is related to what it means to create a reality beyond the one in which we still live right now where private hospital laundry notwithstanding, the dominant narrative on this planet at this time is that everything is for sale. Especially our time, attention and physicality. This poem wants to say there is something before that, that we remember through knowing each other as love and possible love. Growth and possible growth. Change and more change beyond that. My relationship to my father continues to change, and it is tangled with the stories I am unlearning about lynching and what violence built here on sacred lands. And what I am learning is supported by my study of trees and butterflies and my reclaimed practice of play.
Though words distinguishing the proper use of property have been with me from the very beginning I am learning to read another way. I am remembering an older knowledge of who you are and who you can be. It is this form of never and before and beyond that will allow me to actually allow myself to feel safe enough with you to be held and beheld without fear of what this world has taught you to steal, siphon off or misrepresent about me. I remember before everything I know now. And I practice surrendering to that inarticulate memory. I remember the part where we are eternal and allow it to hold me here and now.
P.S. My every day writing practice shapes my days into vessels for generations of love. If you want support with your own daily creative practice, I’d love to be part of your journey. This is the Stardust and Salt Daily Creative Practice Intensive.