Dialects of time

I know about time.

From my grandfather,

who stewarded the swell of grapes and the reddening of tomatoes.

Or my grandmother,

whose stool-elevated foot ushered the day shadows across the yard.

Or my mother, who embodied a laugh that took its time to -

undulate through cell and organ

until it filled the space between people.

I know about time.

From the unhurried wake of idombolo

and the intentional brew of gemere,

that conducts the circadian rhythms into orchestra of ritual and dance and prayer.

I know from time that these mean the same thing.

And that lunar and solar are two sides of the same celestial oscillation.

From my ancestors,

I know time is for holding and not for keeping.

For crossing and not for chasing.

It is for gyrating along geomagnetic memory,

oriented always toward home.

And it is for communing under the shade of mycelial threads.

But I know about time, too,

from my oppressors.

That it is vectorized.

That it is for seizing, wringing, resisting.

I know from them to measure a nanosecond with the same reverence as a millennium.

I know about time.

That like power, dilates for the massive and does not treat all bodies as equal.

That power, and energy and force necessitate it. That it obeys physical laws

but not justice.

I can tell you how long it takes

to turn forest into fuel,

body into biomass,

life into light that does not linger.

I can tell you how long it takes for uranium to evaporate bodies in Hiroshima.

It is fast.

I can also tell you how long it takes to return stolen land,

to hear the screech of a woman,

and to render a love legitimate.

It is slow.

With fluency,

I can recite both,

the sharp ticks of temporal violence,

and the grounded clicks of the geo-ancestral clock.