From marble and granite to steel and glass,
we were discussing Rhina Espaillat’s On the Avenue in class,
was it 1950s or 1980s NYC and were the fifties
the city’s halcyon days or is it now, the 2020s,
the boroughs teeming with immigrants
from the round earth’s imagined corners,
Hasidim and Muslim, Haitian and Russian, as we
Italians and Irish in an earlier era were. Everything will
be ok or not, the recombinations which make
prediction and intuition fortunately hopeless
and each individual an experiment gone well or wrong.
On the avenue God speaks by spewing
toy and clothing stores, breakdancers and ice skaters,
the Brooklyn Navy Yard seen from the Brooklyn Bridge,
the skyline admired when my car broke down on the Triborough Bridge.
The numbers of us overwhelm, there exist powers
overwhelming for the human body and mind.
I don’t mind but I can’t make sense of it.
Gandhi said What you do may not seem important
but it is very important that you do it. By that what is meant?
Linda said Why does God always have to be a man?
I said He could be a she but She’s probably really
a Tyrannosaurus rex. I like to be in America!

Look on me dearly:
your stolen sullied sullen

daughter. I could dig you up
to hold your bones but

want only to wash myself
away, like white foam

from the seashore.
If I burn what is buried,

is it cremation
or disintegration? You would fly

ashes in the wind, like a wish
given

lift, like an altar of lit
incense.

Think of learning of your blood:
yellow skin and rice paddies

and great-great-great-great-granddaddy
grey for the Confederacy.

Do two halves not one whole
soul make? I take

a breath
and leave it

free.

Kathleen Avenue still has houses,
But people left, and trees were felled;
The canopy across the street
Has lost some limbs
And many feet
Of children
Playing hide and seek.

One house, a brown-shingled frame
Is aging there as are our names;
The front yard doesn't boast corn
That Daddy grew
When first we landed;
Not knowing neighbours were offended
With farming behind green picket fences.

      so corn, cabbage and turnip too
      were left to rot. Daddy knew to
      strike when hot.

The locals weren't too much impressed
When Daddy taught them some respect.
The human smell of decaying turnip
Turned noses down that stood straight up. The front was never farmed again.
    
Recently, I passed that yard,
The picket fences gone;
And someone has a garden there,
The new arrivals,
If they care,
Really see the wisdom there.
I give a nod
To my Old Man,
An immigrant
Before his time.

This land, foreign, yet so welcoming
Who would've known
I would own land
halfway across the world
from the homes of my ancestors
or rather,
this land would allow me to borrow it
prosper from it
and make it my home

Trees sway to the melody
of a warm summer breeze
Chirping birds and bubbling streams
the harmony
And I, simply another passing traveller
In the eternal life of this land

Who was here
100, 500, 1000 years ago?
Who knew this land
like the palms of their love?
Who sat here,
as I do now,
eyes closed
taking in the music of this land
soul at peace
knowing it was home?

This land, my new home,
and so, so welcoming

You’ve befriended discomfort,
Left behind your childhood streets,
only to walk down dark foreign ones.
You kiss away your mother tongue,
Surrendering to an unfamiliar one.

                      ...............

Your battles are carved into my blood vessels
and I will carry them with me
as reminders of patience and faith

It soothes me to keep
the clutter of the past
in picture albums
on my cell phone:
mother’s yellow dresses,
ashes in weighted urns,
brittle  
birth and death certificates,
enough heirlooms
to make a portable history,
things heavy enough
to resist memory’s drift,
for when
the hills blaze up
and I have to evacuate,
leave everything behind—
I am ready to
be an immigrant
once more.

Your heart rests in the palm of your father's sacrifice.
Your breath rests in the nostalgic wind that passes by him
When he remembers his past and reflects on your future.
Your colours run down the lines of your mother's smile,
Whenever she raises her hands to the sky,
Praying for you and a little more time,
Because she left her beating heart back home,
To become foreign and unknown only so you could grow.

Their complexions are painted with fatigue,
Because when you're sound asleep,
they run toward bordered walls,
so that when you wake up in the morning,
There will be open doors at your feet.

When a nostalgic wind passes by them,
They'll tell you stories of their childhood,
And they'll leave each word,
With a taste of reminiscence,
A hint of stolen years reflected in the teardrops,
That rest in the corner of their eyes,
And yet when they look towards you,
In seconds your reflection overshadows everything they once used to dream.

All for you...

--
There are so many words to describe me,
none of them is B.A.M.E.
I've got a foreign name, exotic.
Try to read it before you modify it.

How long have I lived in the UK because
my English is so good, where did I learn it?
My accent is American, it's confusing.
or my accent is too Filipino, quite embarrassing.
How can we come from so far
and be so fluent-- so bizzarre.

My rice cooker is an enigma,
more so the amount of rice I eat, huh?
My spoon and fork don't make any sense to you
But your table knife achieves nothing for me, too.

Why do we dye our perfect black hair?
why do we want our skin to be fair--
why don't we just embrace our God-given tan?
Your president seems like a smart man
Fighting your country's drug war like no one else can
Lastly, "are you a Manny Pacquiao fan?"

It's quite difficult to be a P.O.C.
in a world that doesn't understand our P.O.V.
Why we've immigrated and not always assimilated
Why we've flown thousand of miles away from home
Only to stick with our own
but sometimes there is just some comfort
in not having to explain the way we are
or who we are
and why we are
the persons we are
without having to feel subpar.

if I stay, I miss the BBQ,
if I leave, I miss the mangoes.
There is no hope for
those of us trapped
between two worlds.