inside     us,     the     past,    present,   and    future
happening   at    once,   we   are   found   this  way,
together,  a   people   spliced  by  empire,   but  it’s
not  a gift  to not  be  alone in our detailed misery,
though  i  find  the  song  familiar,  enraptured  by
the  notes  swimming  out   our  mouths, the  little
heart  of  our   language,  the shapes  of  our  eyes,
still, i  found  sadness  as a physical law, mingling
with  the  gravity,  each   cell  being  called  to  the
center  of  something  spinning, denser  than  me,
larger  than me, older  than  me,  the  planet,  like
my  body,  can’t  stop  moving,  the  crust  divided
to   plates,   swimming   belly  to   belly   atop   the
molten  mantle,  splitting,  sliding,  and  crashing,
this  is  how  land  is  formed, this  is  how  land is
destroyed,  the  work  of  eras, sometimes there is
a   hole,    deep   below    the    ocean,    where   the
magma escapes  to  cool  at  the  sky,  this  is  how
islands  are   formed,  the  cane  watching  bomba
begin on  the  plantation,  it  was  a  language, the
bright  slaughtering  of  the  goat,  it’s  dark  spine
stretched  over   the  barril,  it was a language, the
dancers   bodies  speaking   to  the   drummers,  a
song   about  leaving,  a   song   about  sickness,  a
song   about  the  hunger  of   touch,  the  seeds  in
the  maraca,  the  hunched  back of the cua player
knocking   the  rhythm   to   the   wood,  it  was   a
language, millions  of  our  bodies  in  motion, my
body,    wilting   like    the   wind-touched    crops,
watching  a  little  girl,  round  and  missing  baby
teeth,   dancing   bomba  in   humboldt  park,  you
could have been there too, rolling your shoulders,
the drummers and  their  hands  of  water, rolling
atop   the   tight   animal   skin,   summoning   the
sound   to   match   your   feet   finding  the  earth,
your  feet, the  earth,  the emptiness  of my hands

Copyright © 2023 by Giovannai Rosa. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on October 4, 2023, by the Academy of American Poets. 

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“Ivelisse Diaz has talked about Bomba being a space that is always alive. Bomba is Black music of resistance, of history, of storytelling, and, inextricably, of Puerto Rico. It is medicine, an energy that has been used to heal, inspire, weep; to conjure joy, community, relief; and used as a means to help guide enslaved people to their escape. I wrote this working to capture the living entity of Bomba briefly into a poem, to capture us, time, the islands, sadness, Chicago, our planet, our loss, our migration, our movement, and that space in the future where we are all alive, witnessing each other, filled with dance and music.”
—Giovannai Rosa