RECTA RATIO COGNOSCIBILIUM (04/06)

Art By Chema

RECTA RATIO COGNOSCIBILIUM*

(The Right Reason of What Can Be Known)

The castle,

the great search,

monstrosity breathing through cracks in the walls

the craft of night,

hands threading silence with starlight.

Victorian garments,

layers of memory stitched in old lace,

robes and remembrance

I forgot the olive,

forgot the scent of roots still clinging to dust

after the plague passed through.

A howl

a howl from El Coquí

for a resisting Palestine,

echoing over mangroves and broken borders.

Stadiums

columns of knowledge rising like prayers

from battered books and crowded classrooms.

I write

so they might heal.

Hundreds of rats

gods in disguise,

caricatured truths

we verify with trembling hands.

Affirmation

is imagining ourselves

as passengers of this wide, whirling universe,

residents of this Antillean Caribbean,

hearts made of saltwater and sun,

tongues singing stories

the empire could not silence.

We are still here.

We are still dreaming.

We are still building

castles

from memory.

-ER

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