By Will Falk

I am searching for redemption
wishing for La Fonda beach to form
the sandy altar of my own Eucharist
an offering of the body and blood
the body and blood of me

I am not holy
in the traditional sense
nor worthy in any sense
but somewhere up there
up north about K38
Jesus Cristo, el Redentor
with arms raised facing west
facing el oceano pacifico
with his perpetually bleeding corazon
watches on knowingly
knowing better than most
about bodies and blood

also up there
up north around the border
are the soldiers, too
not Romans but Anglos
carrying loaded rifles
like sharpened lances

and here I am swimming
when distant voices begin
soft and slow at first
they are memories
they are stories
they are things I’ve heard and read

one comes from way up the coast
from salmon country
it is the silver-haired whisper
of a Salish woman when she told me
what her people have always known
that the ocean takes away pain
a grey ice bath for black bruises
while the tide sings an easing song

another comes with greedy blue eyes
and a blond beard
screaming off countless pages
encouraging young men to head west
and manifest America’s destiny

one is not so much a voice at all
but my own skin baking in the sun
reminding me that Mexican soldiers
affectionately called my people
los colorados for our ruddy skin
reminding me when
Jon Riley fled Protestant whips
and led his Irish compatriots
the San Patricios
across the Rio Grande
to fire musket balls and grape shot
back at invading Yankees

I am swimming, soaking bruises,
and searching for redemption when
ancestral history comes shocking and sudden
on the punch of a sting ray’s sting

my red blood flows freely
across La Fonda’s white sands
and back into the green seas
while my ruddy body bakes
like los colorados on the gallows
where they hung as deserters
at Chapultepec
finding in Mexico
their own personal redemption

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Will Falk

Will Falk moved to the West Coast from Milwaukee, WI where he was a public defender. His first passion is poetry and his work is an effort to record the way the land is speaking. He feels the largest and most pressing issue confronting us today is the destruction of natural communities. He received a Society of Professional Journalists, San Diego Chapter, 2016 Journalism award. He is currently living in Utah.

Latest posts by Will Falk (see all)

• Time to Escalate? First-Ever Rights of Nature Lawsuit Dismissed - December 7, 2017
• The Rights of Nature and the Power of Law - October 18, 2017
• Why Does the Colorado River Need to Sue For Rights? - September 25, 2017