I’ve been digging for a while
A stubborn weed that won’t let go
fingers prying stones
nails packed with soil
subcutaneous levels of time
digging deep
tiny tendrils seeking dark
Purple, gold, red, black
And the transparency of white
Not knowing the strength of grief
Or the nakedness of light.
Have we grown strong, then?
Barefoot children,
Pressed clothes and slicked back hair,
“Just because we’re poor,
doesn’t mean we have to be dirty”
Cereal boxes and fish hooks,
rail road tracks, and chandelier gems
from a plastic factory across the tracks,
Pacific Islanders in a Mexican barrio
in a foreign land without “birthsands”.
Oh those young roots holding strong in desperation
A generation of mixed breeds pulled apart,
Separated, dispossessed from birthlands
What was there to hold onto then, But each other?
I cried in the dark, afraid,
Of being alone
Of being born
And dying
A bastard
Without a name
To my skin
But you were there. Then.
Clinging rootlets without soil.
Never letting go.
Are we not now resilient weeds digging deep
Ferns turning stones in an Ahu of our own creation
Distant lives in our own image, still holding on.
hinarising 