What remains after us?

Poetry is what remains

after we make love,
after we march for justice,
after we make little revolutions against big injustices,
after we paint and color the canvasses of our skin,
when we make peace with the rage of the system,
when we kiss
... the hands of our elders,
.. the mouth of our lovers,
.. the nose of the new born

Poetry is what remains
after we hold hands or smile or talk and listen to one another,
when our hands glance each other's shadows,
when the moon is full and we are empty.

Poetry is what remains
after we have lived
many suns together.

Come make poetry with us
Poetry that swallows the wind to make us rain
Poetry that touches our faces with the hands of the dust
Poetry that makes craters in the soul of your heart
Poetry that defies bullets and the shadows of mourning
Poetry made by the hands and the eyes of rainbow warriors who struggle to make springtime the only season of our dreams

Poetry that buries the war dead with the words and cries of our elders who never gave up
Poetry that makes love to overthrow capitalism and its war machinery of wage labor, mining, fossil fuel and paved over acquifers
Poetry that is the flower and bread of organizing our utopias and seeds
Poetry that is on the lips of the loved ones,
.. the first kiss of humanity,
.. the first kiss of revolutions,
.. the kiss of our ancestors and newborn.

Poetry that says never again to war and hate, extraction and exploitation of our deepest life gestating in the earth herself.

Our dreams do not fit in
voting urns
banks

Our dreams fit
in our hearts and word of peace, sisterhood and justice...

--arnoldo garcía