for Robin Coste Lewis
Neuroplasticity.
The brain is finite.
The mind can find its
Newborn elasticity
Inside its chambered
Nautilus, hiding
A spiral stair,
A nacre lining.
It was the oldest theme:
The theme of Descent.
You tumbled down
An unexpected stair
Into your future.
Into intensive care.
A hole in the skull,
A breach in the hold.
And you were suddenly
A brahmachari:
Tabula rasa,
Shaven hair.
A brain is Play-Doh.
A mind is what a brain
Can be remade to.
You shaped and smashed
Your brainstuff flat
On all the scattered
Bits of matter
Gray and white
To piece your anguish
Into language
And write.
The mind is millions
Of becomings
Summing
Into one resilience.
But when I say this
Of “the mind,” it’s your mind
That I mean.
I sing the praises
Of the Goddess, Robin,
When I write to you.
Do you believe in her?
I believe in you
And so in Her
In every woman
Rising lotus-borne
From the bottom of the stairs.
That was yoga’s oldest
Definition.
It used to be a mission
You assigned your will.
To forget
Without forgetting
You’ve forgotten.
Conscious rebirth.
And then, on the other side of death,
To break that silence
And learn to read.
To sing the liminal hymnal
Of the alphabet.
Begin with Om.
This monosyllable
You had to hum.
Do not believe:
Become.
Your poetry, Gayatri,
Your blackness, Kali,
Your voyage, Sable Venus,
Back up those stairs.
Durga, endure.
Yogini, breathe.
You were down there
When the mine flooded.
Robin, you swam back up to us,
Your pockets full of diamonds.
