Ascension

Transcriber: Josephine Wilson
Reviewer: Rhonda Jacobs

Because I’m an etymologist
and because words matter,

because language is a culture-keeper,

because it is a bridge or a burial,

a tourniquet or a noose,
depending on the user and the usage,

I enter every conversation etymologically.

And since etymology
is to study the origin of a word,

its history, if you will,

and since history is fastened
to politics and philosophy,

I enter every conversation
listening for the origin story

of both the speaker
and that which is spoken.

So the theme is ‘rise’.

The definition of ‘rise’
is to move upward,

to come to the top of a thing,
to increase in value, to advance,

to climb, to exert oneself,
to meet a challenge,

to take part in a rebellion,

to increase in volume.

Now let’s talk about
the meaning of ‘rise’.

Because definition
is but a commentary on meaning.

To rise means to travel past
that which is beneath you.

To rise means to return from the dead.

See that’s that good poetry.

To rise is to transcend the grave,

and I’ve been crawling
out of graves my whole life.

I heard that if you say ‘drowning’,
you better mean it.

Promise the wind what is left
of your bones, say ‘bones’.

The erected totems pitched soundlessly
in the dark wetlands of your body

will want a proper burial promise.

A proper burial.

Not premature or heavy,
but thick and ceremonious

like the way you laughed
with friends you eventually buried,

the ones whose names still dangle
from all of your unfinished poems.

Say ‘danger’ and know
it is an unremarkable road,

a howling place
you ruined your dresses in.

Say ‘your grandmother’s hands’,

and watch your fledgling song
lift out and out of the grave,

an apparition of hymnals
and unsuccessful curses.

Say ‘childhood’ and catch
each devestation by the throat.

Say ‘stepfather’ until you
do not need to say it anymore,

until it is a limp and needless word,
until it is just one more thing to bury.

Say ‘memory’ and do not run from the meal,

eat what you can, be full by morning.

Say ‘rise’ and spend your flesh on it.

Pull the slow tendrils of girlishness

from each padlocked room
you made a home in.

Pirouette the sun if you feel like it.

Let the sky be what it is,
soft, persistant halo,

ready to turn mistakes to hummingbirds.

Say ‘wings’, say ‘amen’.

Say ‘miracle’, say ‘possible’.

Say ‘stretch’, say ‘reach’,
say ‘try’, say ‘win’.

Say ‘I fell down, but I got up’.

Say ‘I borrow from
the lineage of Lazarus’,

say ‘there are miracles
only I can perform’.

Say ‘the only thing that is relevant
about any crucifiction

is the resurrection after’.

Say ‘I fairly sizzle with zeal
and enthusiasm

to do the things that can only
be done by me’.

Say that, say this.

Say ‘The body is the algebraic
precision of prayer’.

Say ‘God’ if it suits you,
and hear your own name echoing back.

Do you remember
what it felt like to be born?

To suffer the body for the sake
of a dance; say ‘dance’ then.

Say ‘never again’ or say ‘forever’

and then plant your seeds, bury your dead,

sing what songs you know,
tell the earth how plural you are,

how fertile the soil of your heart.

Say ‘heart’, dear heart.

Red, red heart,

has there ever been anything
that could keep you from rising,

again and again and again?