My parents are gardeners
from the land you know
as war and rice paddies
A place where incendiary precipitation
pattered against infertile soils and
limbs of lovers scattered the streets
Where souls and cities were slaughtered
by disputing doctrines and
palm trees swayed to the songs of
unceasing flocks of choppers
There, fumes of endless exhaust laced
the atmosphere as
arable terrain was set ablaze
Shovels swapped for snipers.
Seeds swapped for bullets.
How could one expect any type
of floriculture to flourish in such
environment?
So when the sea beckoned their names,
promising obscure fates,
they could not abdicate.
The ocean– its own kingdom–
is no more serene than the one from which they came
It is a nation of no good;
wrathful currents swallowed some whole,
pirates thieved what was left
of those poor, penniless souls,
and many did not make it.
Sullen skies sobbed and wept for them, those
spiritless, ramshackle bodies congested
in a single flimsy vessel that carried them
to human encampments– a city of vagrants–
where home was made out of the inhabitable
and ten thousand pairs of exhausted feet
remained, waiting...
Their trek brought them to the rich, American soil,
And in spite of new obstacles,
the genesis of their
long-awaited garden.
I blossom because of squalid hands
My parents are gardeners of war
And I,
Their dear cultivation.
Editor(s): Leandra S.
Photo Credits: Unsplash