English subtitles for clip: File:Mayda del Valle at the White House Poetry Jam (2 of 8).webm

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(applause)

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grandmother our common thread
began in my mama's womb

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spun my fetus like a
record in her cipher

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sampled your stubborn and
mixed in her fathers posture

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our connection is full circle

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abuela you bearer of children

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you seer of spirits

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you are truly miraculous

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you are the whispers of
litanies and white tablecloths

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your melody is captured

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in the spilled
candle wax of my skin

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my tongue's a broken needle
scratching through the
grooves of a lost wisdom

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trying to find a faith
that beats like yours

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what secrets do your bones hold?

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what pattern does your
dust settle into when
I beat these drums

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inside my ribs?

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what color was the soil of
your grandmothers garden?

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grandma how did you pray?

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did you store the memory
of your creator in strands
of hair tucked into scented

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soap boxes or placentas
buried under avocado trees?

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what reservoir did you
pull your faith from?

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was it anything like this gumbo

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this sancocho

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this remix of rituals and
chants sampled from muscle
memory and spirits that visit

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my dreams that I struggle
to stir into discipline

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to honor the unseen

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with these shells this sage
these rudraksha and rosary beads

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these white candles
crystals statues

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this sweet water honey
rum and sweetgrass

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abuela how did you pray
before someone told you
who your god should be?

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how did you hold the earth
in your hands and thank
her for its fecundity

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did the sea wash
away your sadness

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how did you humble yourself
before your architect

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did you lower
yourself to your knees

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or rock to the rhythm
of ocean waves like I do

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grandma how did you pray?

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some say faith is for
the weak or small minded

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but I search for
your faith everywhere

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need it to reassemble myself
whole from these shards of
Chicago ice and island breezes

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so I can rewrite the songs
of your silence and pain

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your lonely fists broken
toothed smile and burdens

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into a medley of mantras

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wish you could have
shown me it's shape

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but I know it's in
every sacred breath

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in the shadow of trees
that you visit me in

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in the flicker of flames I stare
into searching for what's divine

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and I know my body is the
instrument my maker uses
to rearrange the broken

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chords of your history
into a new symphony for my
unborn children's feet to

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dance to and I see
you grandmother

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gathering with your sistren

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to chant the names of the living
and the dead and remind us all

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that whether gathered
in marble temples

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around a midnight fire
or block party speakers

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we have always raised our
hands to the sky trying to
touch the invisible force

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that holds these cells
together into a fragile mass

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children of different
nations but the same vibration

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we be sound to beat to
bass to bone to flesh

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we be sound to beat to
bass to bone to flesh

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we are all truly miraculous

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(cheering and applause)

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♪♪