Today's poem is by C. Dale Young

Demigod
       

Long before the Greeks named him Poseidon,
the Taino knew his real name was Yucahu.
And unlike the Greeks and Romans who

chose a belligerent sky god hurling thunderbolts
as somehow superior, the Taino preferred
to value life over war and its resulting power.

Off the coast, dolphins scissor the surface
and gulls wheel through the air on drafts
unseen save for the birds' turbulent movements.

The sunlight is clean and clear, charged as it is
with ions liberated by the sea. The Taino word
for salt and seawater is the same: Gua.

And the word for land by the sea is Car,
which made it into English as Cay or Key.
Combine the two and you get Guacar,

twin of Yucahu and god of the land and harvest.
I spend time thinking through words because
that is what I do. And what some see as brujeria,

I see as the magic inherently left to us by the gods.
Some say the gods have abandoned us, and others
say they left part of themselves behind

in what we may regard merely as other human beings.
In comics, they call these people Demigods,
but being half god only makes you more human.

The Taino believed "demigods" exist so
the gods can touch us in a more personal way.
And what the Hindus see as reincarnation,

the Taino see as simply the demigod returning.
The sun at its zenith, the shadows skewed now
and faltering, I cool off in the sea. You think what

I have said is mystical crap, but there are always
truths hidden in plain view. A human body
is 0.4% salt by body weight, a concentration

equivalent to that in seawater. Imagine.
Now do you understand why the Taino chose
a sea god over all others? They understood he

resides within us all, that our bodies hold
not sky, not wind, not lightning, but the sea.

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Copyright © 2024 C. Dale Young All rights reserved
from The Greensboro Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission