An Arawak Speaks

by Opal Palmer Adisa

Opal Palmer Adisa is an award-winning poet, literary critic, prose writer, storyteller, and artist. She is the author of several books of poetry and stories for both adults and children. She is the author of Pina, The Many-Eyed Fruit, Bake-Face and Other Guava Stories, Traveling Women, and Tamarind and Mango Women. Leaf-of-Life is her most recent poetry collection, and her latest novel is It Begins With Tears. Adisa’s Tamarind and Mango Women won the PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Award. Her poetry, stories, and articles have been anthologized widely in North America, the Caribbean, and Europe. Adisa is a professor of literature and creative writing, and former chair of the Ethnic Studies/Cultural Diversity Program at the California College of the Arts.

for the record

it was not
with innocent eyes
i         the indigenous
of these shores
watched
your arrival

your coming
was long prophesized

often when scaling
a fish its gill
will bleed your fingers

i’ll always
be here

if you doubt me
place your ear
to the ground

the moon’s fullness
blinds the sun
but cannot deny
its existence