To Think Of God Poem by Leo Briones

We have seen the potter’s tale hidden
in the ashes of dying stars,
dreamed of snow and sky
and a land where the great scale pan
tilts to wash the foul and muck of our stained humanity
a land where we bear residence
and have engraved on our foreheads
the platinum seal of its citizenship.

If the House of Windsor
is the stiff gilded remainder of lost tribes
or Netzahualcoyotl the poet warrior
of the fifth sun, then surely
there is a flash of memory,
in our many narratives woven of truth and lies.
For surely the Son of Man
shall return on the clouds to mend the broken
and the Quetzalcoatl God of rainbow and plume
shall restore dignity to the conquered.

This is to say we have not abandoned
the musing of the young—hope held
in our hand like an eager red balloon
or a perfect telling by the raconteur.
Here beyond the stammering of fools
or the brute roar of the powerful,
there can be heard on the slow
and definite tick-tock of time’s breeze—
a voice on the rainbow spread of firmament.

A voice soundless
but for the steadfast tonality of truth—
we are more than sojourners
in the fibrous cocoon and embryonic fluid
of an eternal protest in which there
is no other space but the space to ask
like an monk with one second left of faith,
or a child born in the reappearing stream of auroras—
our first words indistinguishable from their last—

are we are liberated because we are slaves to truth?
Are we conquers because we have sown drones to plough shares?
Are we saved only by the dream of this kingdom, this citizenship come?