The Turtle Carries Us
I speak to you, my people
you who move like turtles through oceans never built to hold us.
Slow has never meant weak;
it means we carry whole histories on our backs
and still glide forward.
We cross waters where tides lift certain fish toward open light,
while currents drag our kin into colder, hidden streams.
I won’t name the forces
if you’ve ever fought a current meant to break you,
you already understand.
We see pirates on the horizon,
hungry for anything shining, our shells, our stories,
our quiet, steady brilliance.
They circle and reach,
yet we slip past their nets,
wise from surviving the first storms.
Still, we move
pulse steady, shells heavy with memory.
We carry drums from Africa,
songs from Borikén,
and the whispers of every barrio, favela, and village
where our people rise from dust again and again.
Every rhythm becomes a compass.
Every ancestor becomes a star.
Though waves test our breath
and storms try to claim our direction,
we do not drown.
We do not disappear.
Somewhere ahead is the shore we shape ourselves
warm as brown skin in sunlight,
alive with children who never learned to fear the tide.
A place where our shells can rest,
where our stories breathe free.
So I say to you again, my people:
You are the turtle
rising, landing, thriving.
We have always reached the shore.
We always will.
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