Instrument
The worker doesn’t sleep,
head down and hands up / hands down
breakless into sunrise,
breaking into sunset.
The worker somehow moves —
spirit moving through him,
men holding his arms
without anything happening.
Only exhaustion:
well of energy,
well of resources,
holy well of will
and never his own.
Eating to serve
and serving to eat,
with hands for kneading,
hands for praying,
hands for the earth
to build and break.
Uproot to reach the water
that demons keep.
Their pipes of lead.
His thirst and hunger.
Closing his eyes
to eat beans and bread.
Offering each taste to elders
and to siblings
and to his God.
Melting ice where it is
and restoring it back to where it isn’t.
Fingers interlocking
and raising each other.
Sitting and kneeling and standing by each side,
his back sinking down.
(Enter gift of presence,
enter gift of day,
entering the changes,
entering the way.)
The sun high in the sky.
A warm and quiet May.
The voice of all his ancestors
bud and rise and shake through him,
cracking through his voice, emptying his voice,
opening a raging cry and walking out the door:
— going home,
eating to eat,
and serving to serve.
Terra Oliveira
Terra Oliveira is a Philadelphia-based writer, the founder and editor of Recenter Press, and a youth programming facilitator at The Free Library of Philadelphia. They are the author of And Still To Sleep, An Old Blue Light, and Processes: A Meditation, and were the artist-in-residence at The Schoolhouse at Mutianyu at the Great Wall of China in March of 2017. Their core value is in devoting themselves to spiritual, political, and emotional growth and communities in harmony with those principles. For Oliveira, this looks like studying, practicing, and sharing Buddhist, Christian, and revolutionary teachings, co-facilitating nonviolent communication workshops, being in a deeply loving cohabitative partnership, participating in free groups and conferences for political education, recovering from the impact of personal and familial addiction, and connecting with nature.