you so aptly guard are now flung open
accepting so many from the hospitals,
nursing homes, streets, and transit.
The lines between the city of the living and
the city of the dead now blurred,
open for quick crossings without the rituals, or
ceremonies of leave taking and long goodbyes.
Once you were content to be the keeper of secrets
wearing a rose colored headwrap,
quietly attending to the new returnees.
Your legion of invisible ones always willing to aid the living.
Now the city where I live has so many dead,
you have taken up residence in parking lots
with truckloads of former husbands, wives,
grandmothers, fathers, sons, and daughters.
In this America your power is unquantifiable as
we count lives lost and transfigured forever.
You now are stronger than you ever intended to be.
Your tears flow unceasing.
Fight to keep as many as you can alive.
Iyansa, goddess whose gifts can both save
us and give others a quick merciful end.
We dream of a different time yet unborn.
Purple hued tempests fly all around the earth
where only a hint of your power is mirrored.
Iyansa, fierce owner of the ancestral realm
bless the day you can close your gates.
