OYE MI POEMA!!!!!!!!!!!!

I was Born in Sedona

Everyone says otherwise. They drive me

Past a hospital in downtown Hartford

And say, up there, fourth floor. I say,

No, in a small artist co-op overlooking

Boynton Canyon Rock. No doctor, no drugs.

Just us and a midwife who knew

The Celestine Prophecy by heart.

They show me a certificate that says, baby girl, 4:17 pm, Mt. Sinai Hospital

And all the rest of the clichés I could have lived by.

All that first night my mother was my cradle

as I looked out at the acres of red

Rock, absorbing the Arizona sun which

Turned liquid red then dark orange into blue, cacti in the

Distance slowly enveloped by a cloak of navy, laying quietly

In the arms of a woman who hitchhiked cross

country to give birth

Because she was answering the call.

All night they meditated and prayed

My mother telling me names of

Crystals that sounded as strong and fierce as the women

Who wore them; Amazonite, Citrine, Adventurine.

One began to paint my portrait

in oils, a painting I have never

Seen but love, the way you cannot see your

Organs but you know that they are there. All around

Pottery wheels hummed, feet kept the rhythm, and the air smelled of burning white

Sage and amber. That morning she faced us both east

toward a wall of windows, where the sun was

Rising steadily behind miles of deep red rock, gently shaking me

Until my eyes opened into the awakening landscape

of a new day.

You wonder why I am impossible

To tame.

And talk about things like spirit guides

And insisted on driving to Sedona alone, from Phoenix

To hike four miles in the rapidly cooling dusk to sit

At a vortex site and meditate, holding a heart carved

Of snowflake obsidian.

Why I burn sage to clean the house

And refuse to shower every day,

No matter who complains. Look into my eyes!

They were born gazing into the endless expanse of the Arizona desert,

Red mountains full of vortices where concentrated eternal energy

Can help you answer your own questions

The rising sun changing the sky over those mountains, while that shock

Was immortalized by an artist whose

Name I never learned.

I told you before. I was born in Sedona.