We Who Learned the Language of Tides

We were born in crossings.
In the dark hold of a history
that refuses to stay buried,
our forbears learned
how to breathe between waves.
The sea remembers everything.
Salt is an archive.
Each tear tastes of someone
who survived before us.
They thought the ocean was a grave.
They did not know
water does not only swallow:
it carries.
It carried names in its undercurrent,
carried songs pressed into wet tongues,
carried the rhythm of drums
beating against the ribs of ships.
History does not move in straight lines.
It circles like tide.
What was taken returns in another form:
a protest chant,
a grandmother’s proverb,
a child standing unafraid before riot shields.
We gather like waves do
one crest following another,
separate but inseparable.
The state calls it unrest.
We call it rising.
When we march,

we are not walking.
We are remembering
how to be ocean.
And oceans cannot be fenced.