We began as a flock of Scots, a Glasgow-living clan Eaters of thick oatmeal Musical brogue speakers
Crossed the Atlantic Nested by the Speed River Tossed seeds from the Heights of Black Bridge
Some took root, Sprouted into saplings A forest of cousins, Great uncles, and grandnieces A family diaspora Populating Canada
Others kept their wings Soared down to Chiapas Bushwacked through Jungle, canoed on rivers, Ate roasted monkey
But the wind currents called. Drew feathered creatures South to the highlands Land of the Maya To live among growers of Garlic and onion
I learned to fly here, Beating back and forth between The Great Lakes and the Caribbean Plate Drawn to stay, become endemic to one place. But also Lured to fly onward forever
Yvonne McArthur is a TCK poet who grew up in Guatemala. Find out more about her or read more of her poetry here!
For Faraway Friends is a collection of poems. All poems were written by Chana Noeth, and originally published on TCKsforChrist.com. Find out more about Chana and read more of the For Faraway Friends collection by clicking the link!
Letter to a Friend as I Leave
No tear runs down my cheek As I give you a last embrace As you stand and wave My smile remains steady My step is confident and sure As I turn and walk away Do not be fooled, my friend. I’m not so emotionless as I seem.
As I give you a last embrace I soak up what it feels like As you stand and wave I commit to memory your face As I turn and walk away I am hyper-aware of my surroundings. I am pensive and sentimental At our parting, my friend.
The air is slightly cool But not enough to bring a chill Your eyes are so bright and clear The sight of them makes me smile Your embrace is strong yet gentle Infused with the warmth of your affection And I’m amazed at how precious you are Though my time here was short— The things I’ll carry with me The memories shared That I’ll cherish forever.
It’s moist outside and I try to place it— I’m not sure it’s quite drizzling But it’s not considered a fog— Even the not-rain can’t decide But to lightly imply precipitation Not really enough for an umbrella But by the time I’ve walked far away It’s enough to leave me wet With reality: I’ll miss you.
And I’ll miss this street And I’ll miss that tree And I’ll miss that shop And I’ll miss the church And I’ll miss this weather That can never decide Whether it’s coming or going Just like me: I hope I’ll return But I don’t know if I ever will. And just like you say of the weather, It’s the spice of life.
And I wonder what you’re thinking As I leave you I wonder if you’re wishing I would cry or show emotion I’m pretty sure you’re thinking You’ll miss me too And I’m thinking How much I used to hate it When people would leave me. I know the feeling all too well.
I’m remembering how I felt When a friend came who I grew to love Poured herself all in (just like I have) Explored and tried new things— It felt like I’d known her for ages We talked about everything— And then she was gone. And she left with a smile on her face No promise of return (And I begged her to return).
(She never did.) Now I’m in her place And I’m reliving that parting— I don’t know exactly what you’re thinking But I suspect I know And that knowing makes this parting Very poignant for me. I’ve always been sentimental But it’s hard to leave a place When I know how it feels to be left It’s harder to enter a place And dive all in When I know it might hurt you to love me.
Dear friend, I don’t know why Life is filled with partings But it is. And that friend I met long ago Taught me a lesson about loving wholly So as much as it may hurt, I think it’s worth it And I hope you’ll understand That if I never see you again It’s not because I don’t love you. I do. And I’m so grateful I didn’t let fear hold me back From loving you. I think I finally understand how she felt When she had to leave me. Though I’ve not seen her since, I learned much from her And laughed and loved Even as I have with you.
Labor of Love
A groan of anguish seeks to escape— I barely contain it. Why, why, WHY Why does it feel so broken?
This was to be a joyful reunion, A celebration of the fruit of many years— Yet here is heartache in the happiness.
All those years of labor and love, Learning, laughing, making mistakes, Working hard, patiently longsuffering.
All those tears of frustration and fear, Not knowing if the work would last another day Drudging through bias and politics and sickness and war (Both the seen and the unseen)
All those years All those tears And for what?
After pouring our lives into these people, This project, this purpose, We’ve come back to visit and we find Such heaviness and hardship.
Was it in vain? To be put in a box and shut away As if it never happened?
Was it a waste? All those years All those tears— Gone?
I said my goodbyes years ago And tucked the memories into my heart As mementos of my childhood, My home, my friends. I thought I said goodbye.
And then I came to visit. All the memories, all the hopes and fears And laughs and loves All the good years Came flooding back.
But now I must leave for good. My heart is breaking again, Worse this time because This crack is on top of another Not yet fully healed.
All those years All those tears And for what? Would it have been better To never come here?
I cherished this place as my home I loved these people as my family I embraced this culture as my own And then I had to leave— Oh, how ecstatic this return!
Every moment excitement and joy Every interaction perfect Like I’m home again! But now it hits me.
I’m giving her my last hug—ever? Will I never walk this street again? Will I never eat fruit from that tree again? Must I truly say goodbye To this place I love?
Oh, the tears Oh, the years The pain of this loss is physical.
Why does it feel so broken? Will it ever be okay? And yet There is grace through the turmoil.
Love and loss Lament amid joy Seeds to harvest Unity amid division Together and apart.
All those years All those tears Seeds were planted. Bridges were built. Love was grown.
Maybe it seems Worthless Useless In vain Or a waste But no. We serve a God who’s always working Who’s bigger than space and time, Injustice and poverty.
Our work was not in vain Because the work was God’s. These friends are not lost Because they’re eternal family. This people is not done Because we’ll worship with them In paradise.
All these years are in His hands All these tears He holds in a bottle. God is working, Just wait and see.
Takunda Muzondiwa is a cross-cultural kid born in Zimbabwe, who performs spoken word poetry as a way to express her confusion about her cultural identity. In this video she performs a poem as part of her speech at the Race Unity Speech Awards from 2019.
“Yesterday I was African; today I am lost.” ~ Takunda Muzondiwa
“What are you? I can’t even tell you how many times I had to answer that question in my life. And not once did ‘Vaughn Thompson Jr.’ seem like a good enough answer. Man, sometimes it didn’t even seem like ‘human’ would suffice. So now I just say, ‘I am third culture.'” ~ Vaughn Thompson Jr.
It’s barely dusk as we land, fireworks bursting confetti beneath us, covering over the tidy patchwork farms. He asks if the celebration is for us – no, it is a holiday you really ought to know, the celebration of your country’s independence. But you know another date for that. The child behind us wails, and her mother shushes her, murmurs soft words to say we are almost out now.
We trudge like lines of ants from the village, clutching our dusty things in tired hands, following whoever is in front of us, hoping they know the way. The line splits. We hover, indecisive. They examine our blue books and send us left with smiles like we’ve gotten passing marks on the maths test; the screaming child and her mother have green and go right.
The gate-keeper stares bored, wants to know if we have been on any farms recently. We laugh. He sprays us disinfected, showers away the disease of our arrival, sends us onward into the July night with stars too different to recognise. I pull up my trousers, re-buckle the belt we bought a week ago in the dripping heat of market, with the brightly sweating mother yelling at her toddlers while we tried to barter. The doors open like voodoo in front of us, and the wall says welcome home with the same confetti colours.
Seven years seems like seventy Each crisp breeze was glowing Singing everything from birds in trees To lions guarding young cubs on plains in breezes
Beating to a rhythm of a tribal drum I danced underneath a crying sky As we chanted our glowing style in feet Dripping in moonlighting Under intimacy of tribes wearing Little other than swinging skirts Made up of plants beads As beady blowing glow lit lamps All went down as the sun goes low
We rattled our cups A malty red wine brewed as stewy smells of aromatic scents expelled Alongside an African rice hot spicy spread Along came the moon god As we all stamped out our other life woes
An African I’ll Always Be by Michelle Campbell
Africa breathes deeply inside my soul its diversity greater than the oceans thoughts of its soil stir up my emotions as my memories take over control.
South Africa’s vast beauty feelings of forever on duty whether in the Drakensberg mountains hiking or enjoying fountains.
My heart overflows with wishful notions of a holiday to a game reserve peacefully the animals we observe ’til we see some exciting commotions.
Recalling the fish eagle’s distinct cry and giggling Malwaiian children waving goodbye burning our feet on the sand at the great Lake the mighty Boababs our dreams awake.
To hear a lion’s loud roar or an elephant’s rumble God’s creation makes you humble experiences one will forever store.
Dearest Africa runs through my veins on my lips she always remains, the place i run to behind closed eyes she is the world’s most neglected prize.
To Africa i’ll always be devoted little melanin, yet still her daughter daydreams of her, my soul water her essence adored and noted.
Dry season has come to Nkor at last, the smiles on our faces says it all. Early, before the sun wakes up and yawns, and wonder what day it is. We drag our dusty feet, deeply smeared by oil from last nights meal, through the wet waiting dew, into grandma Beri’s cornfield. everybody is present, everybody is singing, the birds are whispering, the children are dancing, Their cane baskets waiting to lift the days harvest. A sight of joy and singing. Our women wrap their fingers round the maize plants Snatching and Ripping, Our men fill their basket, lifting and carrying, running like warriors home and back. Before you know it its twilight, its time for feasting, the harvesters grind the goat meat between their Molars, Flushing it down with kegs of palm wine.
we carry our lives around in these memories by Shiloh Phoenix
Grey-blue air sweeps the porch clean with the force of a continent behind it; Africa’s breath, green and wild and wet and I am small standing here, cold in my soaked skin, embracing the weight of this whole world against my heart.
My days here are numbered, just a small handful left to drip out of my fists and then I will be gone; gone like the dust of the harmattan in July or the mangoes in January, and the rain will wash away every footprint I left as if it never was.
Clean bird-song rings out to welcome the sunshine, whistles of hopes that never died, and I huddle into my hoodie with every moment burned onto my skin so that I will never forget the taste of the wind, the power of the water, anything.
Three weeks later when I touch down to vivid grass and cold white air, the droplets on the window pane will resound lost echoes as loud as thunder, and I will trace my own handprint searching for the map of what I’ve lost.
Kuma calls across the rain-drop dust overlayed on tarmac predictions, and Pafode answers sharp lightning bolt facts; I speak this language quiet in my whole breath as loyal as a continent, but we all know that in the end no village could ever be mine.
When I was in the village Somebody asked me, and I don’t remember Who they were They asked me If I had a car. And I said yes. Then they asked me if my sister Had a car. And I said yes.
And I saw on their face That it didn’t make sense And I started to explain In America, if you don’t have a car You can’t have a job And if you don’t have a job You can’t make money to live.
And they looked at me. And I looked at them. And they said Does your mom have a car. And I said yes. And they said Does your dad have a car. And I said yes. And they said Does every person in your house Have their own car. And I thought of all seven of us And I said yes.
And I wanted to give some explanation I wanted to say that This is just normal here And Everybody has their own car I wanted to say I worked hard for what I have And I wanted to say There are people Who live in this country Who don’t have a car People who are poorer Even than I am And you know I’m poor Because I qualify for five different types Of government assistance but There are people who have less Than I do Who do not have any cars
But I said none of that I just looked at him And he looked at me
And I wanted to say I’m sorry If I could give you my car I would If I could trade places with you I would If there was some way I could share All my privilege and benefits I would And if there was some way I could trade My birthright with you I would But I can’t
But I said none of that I just looked at him And he looked at me And we didn’t say anything But I know The same look I saw in his eyes That nothing made sense That he could not imagine What I was saying That same look in his eyes I know is the same look That people see in my eyes here Because it doesn’t It just doesn’t make sense
So I tried to imagine having a car My car In the village I tried to imagine Driving it to Makeni and going to market I tried to imagine coming out of market And putting my groceries in the car And driving back home I tried to imagine my sister Living in the same House as me And having her own car And it just made no sense
It made no sense
And I’m not Confused Exactly I just don’t get how These worlds can be so different And how I can be in both of them And yet not either
And I just don’t get What answer I was supposed To give him That would ever make sense Or any answer I could give him That he could understand Because I couldn’t even find an answer That I could understand
Yes I have my own car And yes Every person in my house Has their own car And no I don’t know why
In Maforay tonight it is raining pounding splatters on a tin roof and the dark is warm wet barrels full of hopeful promises that we will plant in the garden tomorrow
In Reading tonight it is quiet cracked sidewalks lining houses and the dark is yellow paned glass full of cautious doors that don’t ever open for strangers
My soul sleeps soaked in Maforay rainy season
My body breathes blasphemous in Reading summer heat
and i am nowhere much
{I’m disintegrated tonight, divided between places where I don’t belong.}
I’m still peeling from that sunburn by Shiloh Phoenix
The tree today is supple and heavy laden with the weight of too much rain but where you are the sun is an Egyptian god, relentless in his dominion
If I can carry this sunburn across the Sahara skies could I bring back my hands cupped full of water?
Life never works the way I want it to and neither do you oh Africa, with your back turned to me
Once I was yours now I am a lost memory swinging slowly in these trees that are not the same at all
{and its a constant reminder that my world is small – small in the millions of miles}
Lost Souls of Africa by Shiloh Phoenix
“it’s gonna take a lot to drag me away from you”
I once had a friend just black enough to be called n****r by strangers in Alabama but too white to be mistaken for Senegalese She left Cape Town years ago but she’s still tasting the warm salt of Africa’s ocean in her dreams and she told me even though winters in Minnesota are bitter cold they never numb her longing
My brother, black as the dirt his mother farmed her whole life, black as the silence about his missing father, wrote me a letter from the psychiatric hospital where they put him, telling me that he feels like he is losing his whole self in a war against himself and he doesn’t know who he is anymore I replied that California is where people go to get lost not to find themselves Go home, my brother you are a prince in your own land though the doctors here have named you psychotic
To the lost boys of Sudan I too have watched my workplace throw out food, and I too have done the math of how many people that could’ve fed, and I too have wept for the stories I cannot tell, the people who do not know how to care or even understand
Two years ago I watched a little white girl pack up all of her things and get on a plane to Sierra Leone but she was too young to know what she had gained and what she would lose or how mirrors never tell enough of the story
I have never met a land so alluring as Africa I have never known a people so full of yearning as the lost souls of Africa
Today it is a cool and grey afternoon in south-east Pennsylvania and I am gathered with a crowd of black boys, laughing at each other in Swahili, wearing skinny jeans and Nike sneakers while they pore intently over their English homework They are too new to know yet how much they’ve lost and I will not be the one to tell them
{Opening quote is from “Africa” by Toto}
Grey-Green Rain by Shiloh Phoenix
Why would you go back she asks Isn’t life better here
i smile Depends what kind of better
Financially she nods
i shrug I guess so but some stuff matters more
her eyes are intent above the rim of her mask but i can’t think of how to explain the warm freedom of Africa
grey-green rain i remember heavy mountain humidity mango juice sticky palm trees bent wind smoky night on red gravel dust and dust and dust
ashes on the breeze hunger boiling in pots whispered songs starch stiff in the schoolyard stars enough to bathe in
hot breath sweaty bus tilted in red mud roosters’ indignation choking silt water bare feet on firm dirt
baoba fuzzy sugar glass soda straws ice cream wet plastic wrinkled skin rough hope enough to taste
she is waiting my tongue is wet full of colour and memories but no words
[i couldn’t pick home from a lineup] by CavalierEternal
red dirt soles naked in afternoon sunshine
the asbestos dust hooked to my left lung like a birth mark
knee deep in this man made lake awkwardly wrestling a foreign first tongue
sunderland summer by CavalierEternal
sugarloaf mountain peaks outside our window, I will climb her tomorrow I promise go into town in a good shirt you wear the new dress your mom sent when she asked —
are you happy with her, yet?
I could have sworn you would leave then, curse me, call old friends, smoke two packs of cigarettes, take the car to the river edge where we met in the muddy bed once.
I never said you should come back, I folded your things in a suit case at the door with a note I wrote I am less than enough to satisfy wanderlust.
you said those are my father’s words, my mother’s curse, the sound a door makes as it closes is physics not proof everyone leaves you.
i am talented at leaving by CavalierEternal
I leave this city with her angry barricades to you
I do not want these humid summers her dull sunrise doused in grey you keep the drunken streetside arguments for your 2 a.m. lullaby
I leave the east coast with her tired history to you
I do not want these hurried movements her densely packed den of strangers you keep the frigid winter coastlines like a still life portrait pinned to your wall
Only in sleep I see their faces, Children I played with when I was a child, Louise comes back with her brown hair braided, Annie with ringlets warm and wild.
Only in sleep Time is forgotten — What may have come to them, who can know? Yet we played last night as long ago, And the doll-house stood at the turn of the stair.
The years had not sharpened their smooth round faces, I met their eyes and found them mild — Do they, too, dream of me, I wonder, And for them am I too a child?
The Stars Are Not The Same All Across The World by Shiloh Phoenix
My first memories include tile floors cool beneath my feet, fans blowing endlessly while the crickets sang in the dark and the world was quiet. The stars were always out, there, always brilliant and near and crowded in the sky, like there were too many and they couldn’t hardly fit.
I grew up there, in that place of chickens at dawn and sheep wandering grey in the dusk and fires blowing ashes and smoke all around the dust of the land, the dust of the people. We were a large group of family, brilliant and crowded into the village, like if one more mother gave birth to one more baby maybe we would be too many for the space. But somehow, we learned to condense ourselves into tangles of bodies and there was always room for one more. Just one more.
I lived years and years of the sun rising every morning and water sloshing new into the bucket, dredged up from the earth with the modern miracle-gift from the tall yellow-haired men so long ago. Our parents told us those stories, about how the white men gave us life from the dust, how their machines brought pure water right here, to our village, to our home. They did not tell us about the chains that came before that, about how it was only right the white men come back with life to give as payment of their debt, about how their restitution could never make up for the generations lost. No, our parents lived small stories in a small world and it was enough to teach us the ways of our grandfathers.
I heard, though, from older youth, about sleeping in the slave castles next to the ocean, tasting the salt of the air and the leftover tears, wearing the disintegrated chains of other grandfathers and remembering that if we forget that history we have lost something.
But then I grew up and followed the footsteps of those slaves to the land of their sorrow, I stepped onto that blood-soil and tried to make it a new home. Tried to redeem it. In this new place, the stars are faded in the sky, lost in the vastness of electricity and development and busy. Even if we had time to stop and look up, we would see only the reflection of our own lives staring back at us.
