Culture ©

it has not been easy preserving

my culture, language and ways

to think about God surrounded

by an English speaking world

trying to engulf me in an alleged

superior way of knowing things

and claiming it a dispensation 

from heaven. with my mother 

tongue I learned to reduce the

world to stones that spoke to 

me, the dead who cried with

me, the priests who found ways 

to whisper stories about how la 

Morenita walks with me on all

the messy streets. it hasn’t been

easy to preserve the child in me

who never speaks English and

has never lost a dream given to

him by a mother from an island

of enchantment and a father from

Mayan hills. 

h. j. Recinos