Green Linden Press

Ocean Mother

Ocean Mother
     knows the currents
who carved my name.

Calling me from
     matrilineal
depths,
she beckons me into her

t a l a y a:

   strands of sunlight
dance across her skin.
Each ripple a reflection
I trace,

   touch
to fingertips.

    Wrapped in the tropic
warmth,
 of my birth

I sink myself
     into her soft
 rocking
waves,

     returning home.

talaya: cast net

Sweetest Mangoes of June

A Golden Shovel after Casandra López’s “Hottest June”

I long for the rooftopping
of Agat mango trees, nesting myself
in clusters of ripened sunset teardrops. Fruiting myself into
a body of canopy stretched and bearing the
bounty, the abundance, the outstretched arms
of leaves. I long for the gathering of
village streets: vendors lined along the
Agat shoreline. The hottest
of Guåhan days, thirst quenched by sweetest mangoes of June.

Arielle Taitano Lowe is a Chamorrita poet who tells stories of Indigenous apprenticeship and intergenerational healing. A University of Guam alumna, she is pursuing her PhD in English at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. Her work can be found in Indigenous Literatures from Micronesia, Indigenous Pacific Islander Eco-Poetry, and the Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day Series.

ISSN 2472-338X
© 2022