Dr. Naomi Helena Quiñonez, Chicana poet, educator and activist, is the author of three collections of poetry: Hummingbird Dream/Sueño de Colibri, The Smoking Mirror and The Exiled Moon. A recent recipient of the City of Berkeley Lifetime Achievement Award in Poetry (2017). She is editor of several publications, such as Invocation L.A: Urban Multicultural Poetry, which won the American Book Award; Decolonial Voices: Chicana and Chicano Cultural Studies in the 21st Century and Caminos Magazine.
Her work appears in publications including Maestrapeace (2019), Voices of Our Ancestors (2019), the Colorado Review, Infinite Divisions and From Totems to Hip Hop to name a few. She has been a featured poet for numerous readings throughout the country, Mexico, Cuba and Spain.
SOMETIMES THE MOON
Sometimes the moon
tells us stories
but we don’t hear them
Sometimes the moon
divulges her secrets
to the night
but we don’t listen
Sometimes the moon
waits in shadow
to pour her tales
into our dreams
but we ignore them
We have forgotten
the language
of stars
and the moon’s
ancient tales
about death and dying
and remembrance
The old stories
about how wounds
are made and healed
and how the essence
of our unruly lives
does not vanish
at daybreak
Forgetfulness exiles
the divine feminine
from the cool, creative
indigo twilight
of consciousness
To a sun struck
broken world
a mania of manipulated
masculinities
and endless destructions
in the stark light of day
