a strawberry
What keeps you here
I ask my heart
Stranger in a strange land, so white, so clean
These fields in June, she laughs
Your red-stained fingers
A taste of heaven beneath each leaf
And this sky expansive and clear
I wonder why, my heart, you hold
Steady on small delights after
Months of sifting memories
Under grey skies
Testing each day as we
Walk out into this not-all-bad
But still foreign place
I am young, says she –
A child who races, explores,
Finds beauty even here
And welcomes the new, trusting
Inviting sweet existence even
Within this space of not belonging
I hold out for
Simple Wonders;
Encounters with the Presence
Crouched amongst the rows I ponder this
Sifting through the too-soon and the already-past
I find it.
The ripest, the reddest berry
Welcomes me into the perfect balance
Proves to me that
Yes, child, even here, even you,
Have abundant peace.
The taste and texture of now.
By Bree Becker, a third culture kid from Rwanda and Kenya who now lives in Oregon, USA.