Syncretism

Lumped beliefs, like populations,

breed their panoplies. Soon

it’s thankfully hard to tell

root from self, past from burden.

These Miami front-yard shrines

hallow fertile confusion.

Santa Bárbara is Changó in Cuba,

but in Brazil the god of thunder

is paired with Jerome. Metaphor

is always local. The belief

is the same, the mask cannot help

but fall away in the rasp of rapture.

Smoke, chant, fruit, and blood.

There are wisdoms oceanic,

and they too have a god,

Olokun, and a sultry goddess

Yemayá, crossing his unforgiving sea

to the New World made old

with prayers that reverse

the miner’s toil and the smelter’s

bullion. In fusion lies

the pearl, grime clumped

into a world, spun yet still,

the way Ochún sits knitting

at the bottom of the river,

patient as marriage.