In the Himalayan foothills during monsoon the electricity once stayed off for fifteen days. Every morning there was chai
with sugar cubes and buffalo milk, delivered to our kitchen door in tin carafes strapped with thick ropes to a mule.
We kept warm by feeding the stove log after log and entertained by watching our spit sizzle on its tin top.
My brother held my hand on the trail to and from school, scanning for leopard scat or for thieving langur monkeys in the trees.
I write this from my brick colonial in Baltimore, decades removed, drinking black tea with thick cream and sugar—
the heat of exile churning in my blood. I drive an SUV, shop at Target, and fight tears at random moments, like when I open
the door and enter the Punjab store down on 33rd, suddenly and viscerally at home among the turmeric and cardamom,
the Neem soaps and steaming samosas under foil on the counter, while the kind owner offers a mango juice box to my daughter.
Only if I embrace this life as a perpetual pilgrim do I find solace in remembering the terraced cemetery in the Himalayan pines
where the mute woman and her donkey guard the graves, the distant beat of tabla drums, the bounce of our flashlights on the trail
walking home at night, thrill of leopards in the dark, the high peak of Bandarpunch to the north, glowing in moonlight.
Published in Little Patuxent Review, Summer 2018 Rachel E. Hicks’ poetry has been published in various literary journals, including Ekstasis, Vita Poetica, The Windhover, St. Katherine Review, Off the Coast, Gulf Stream Magazine, and Baltimore Review. Her short story, “Drink It Dry,” won The Briar Cliff Review‘s Annual Fiction Contest for 2019. She also writes essays and guest blog posts and is working on a novel.
Far from my fatherland I’ve dwelt Because my parents clearly felt That other nations we should reach, To them the gospel we should preach.
Thus sev’ral cultures I have known, And parts of each are now my own. I speak in more than just one tongue; A few I learned while I was young.
So diff’rent lands I could call Home, And sometimes it’s wher’er I roam. Still, Home can everywhere seem far, Except where other pilgrims are.
To my faith’s heroes I relate, And them I seek to imitate. For they were strangers in this place; In hope of heav’n they ran the race.
Ah, friends throughout the world I’ve made. Yet their goodbyes on me have weighed. Now often I just hope and pray That some close friends near me can stay.
Thus, there is loss, yet more is gained, For many mem’ries are retained. And, unlike many things we reap, Our memories we long can keep.
All this has made my skills expand, Let me the world more understand. And God my every trait can use For works He in advance did choose.
What lies ahead I do not know; To new frontiers I still may go. Yet always I will heed the call Of Him to whom I owe my all.
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
Hustle and bustle of lunchtime at Myeongdong Market. Fried chicken feet splayed out and curled at the ends, rows of hanging chilis in different shades of summer sunset, dried whole squids piled flat on top of one another, every tentacle preserved and intact. My eyes come to rest on a little pyramid of kimbap.
The predictable pattern of roll, slice, stack. Roll, slice, stack. The kimbap lady is about my mom’s age, same short, dark hair turning silver, apron wrapped around her once-slim waist, and suddenly, I’m staring at my mom standing at the kitchen counter of the house that we lived in when I was eight and insecure.
4 AM she packs my lunch for a school picnic. I get up not too long after, unable to contain my excitement. Will they be impressed? Maybe even a little jealous of my mom’s Korean cooking? Probably both.
But when lunchtime finally rolled around and the kimbap container was opened, all I heard were the quiet “Eww”s as I felt the slight shift of people moving away from me. My shaking hands found themselves tossing the kimbap into the open and hungry mouth of the trash can.
Their perfectly triangled white sandwiches, perfect pale skin, perfect light eyes (they looked easy enough to gouge out). Sunshine rested in their golden hair while night and fury nested in mine. Did I want to die or be white?
At home, that afternoon, I shut myself in the bathroom scrubbing my skin raw and crying my eyes dry until exhaustion called my name. The front door clicked and I threw angry words at my mom. She never made kimbap again. And I avoided Korean food.
But, I find myself in a trance, walking over to the lady and handing her a 1,000 won bill, receiving a roll of kimbap in return. My tongue is momentarily stunned as it remembers long forgotten flavors. All I taste is salt as I pull out my phone and dial for my mom.
By Melanie Han, an avid traveler and a poet who was born in Korea, grew up in East Africa, and is currently pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing in Boston. She has won awards from Boston in 100 Words and Lyric, and her poetry has appeared in several magazines and online publications, such as Fathom, Ruminate, and Among Worlds. During her free time, she can be found eating different ethnic foods or visiting new countries.
i knew i’d miss mangos pale yellow, smooth, size of two fists combined peeled, sliced and juicy sweet
i was right but surprised by warm peaches firm and sun-yellow picked fresh, washed clean in summer camp sinks juicy sweet and running down my chin
i knew i’d miss lilawadee fragrant, perfect white even when scattered below branches of waxy leaves
i was right but i met magnolia fragrant, perfect white big blossoms to get lost in and breathe myself dizzy
i don’t remember, but mom does a little girl crying water tower! water tower! each time we passed one
that girl is a stranger, lost in time to some parallel stream the magic of water towers is now lost on me but West Texas sunsets enchant, even that silhouette
i was right to miss Thailand – rhinoceros beetles, rambutan, raindrops clamoring on tin roofs – and i still do but i have been touched by Texas, too
it wasn’t perfect no, far from it but we somehow found perfection through wakeup calls and muddy afternoons through endless nights and sleepy skies through glowing embers and fiery grins and the pitchblack sky raining streaks of colour chaos intertwining with shouts of glee and falling asleep to floating circlets of colour and the biting cold to muffled giggles and whispered: ‘nights it wasn’t perfect, no but it was perfecter than I could’ve ever asked for
