The Secret We Forgot

It’s not as though we wouldn’t know

If you gave us a test on it

If you asked us, really asked us, we’d tell you right

If we hushed up the horns and set down the clangs and listened

To the real Mother

We’d tell you the secret we forgot

We’d tell you that we do believe we’re made of stardust,

science says so

But this isn’t science.

If you sat on the dirt floor with us in our rondovel

if you shared a Black Label on a moonless night, we’d tell you

what we’ve known since the stars were young

ain’t no me without you

And ain’t no you without me, sisi.

It has to be all of us.

If you really needed to know, we’d put on some music

And dance the sema together

Hearts circling heaven

And we’d show you

all spinning whirl and whisper “learned theologians do not teach love.”

If you begged us, baking on that rickety table,

we’d untie the cloth strips from your hands and feet

And carry you down the mountain trail and tell you what he said

Being chosen isn’t easy, but what do we find in the binding?

And he was rooting for us, you see.

If you were dying to know, as if you didn’t already

We’d tell you shame got the best of the men that day

But the women persisted as they do

If you hadn’t done it where would we be?

Shadows crouching in shadowy rooms

And you loved anyway

And you smiled and said

It has to be all of us

If you asked us about doctrine we’d rush to find a few textbooks

(Liturgy requires another set of books.)

And if you pointed out all those fancy things got us was

Wars and blood

you’d be right and we’d know it.

It’s all horns and clangs we’d admit if you really stared us down

We’d gulp and stammer that books get dusty but people never do

An afterthought worth thinking, we’d say

A broken compass still marked with true North

It all came from the dark rooms and dusty tables and spinning dances and dirt floors.

If we put it all away and returned the gaze

we’d tell you the secret we forgot:

We can hear each other’s heartbeats

And when we do we know

It has to be all of us.