Nathaly Rosas Martinez is part of the book Stories of Arrival: Refugee and Immigrant Youth Voices Poetry Project.
Check both of our poets from the last two months out Here
MY FATHER'S HANDS
I remember my father’s hands
Putting a red apple every morning
In my hands,
Wishing me a good day at school
Gently wiping the apple for me,
Sometimes I thought his hands had the
scent
Of the perfume of my mother
She hugged me every time
Before going to work.
Sometimes my father’s hands felt like the
soft hands
Of my brother holding my hand
On my way home from school.
How many memories can save a simple
apple?
Sometimes the world revolves
Around this small apple
and we don’t know it.
This apple sometimes cries with me
When I remember all the things
That makes me smile
like
the tiny arms of my brother.
Remembering the people in my life
my father, my friends, my family
they are waiting to be alive again.
—
WHERE FOOD IS AN ART
I am from a place where
The food is an art and
every bite
Is a spicy piece of our
culture
Where the smells call
you to enjoy
And the flavors take
you to your memories
I am from where the
trees grew up everywhere
Guayabo, naranjo, alamos,manzano and palmera*
And the children take
the special gift from them
Naranjas y limas, limas and limones **
Where the grocery
stores have fresh items
Epazote, elotes, manzanas,melones
y granada ***
And bring us an
exquisite dinner
Kneading and rolling,
combination of flavors
Flavors that our
indigenous ancestor gave us
Combination of oils and
onions always mixed
Picante y salado **** gather and dance
together
Our food is not only
food
It’s a way to
communicate our feelings
It’s a way to talk with
our family
It’s our history, our
identity
But now everything is
not the same
The tortillas smell
different, the salsa is not spicy
Our special gifts are
mixed with chemicals
Our food enclosed in a
plastic prison
Gradually, we will lose
the essence even in our countries
The hands of our
grandparents and our people were killed
The food of my family
was thrown into garbage
The cookbook of my
grandmother was burned
There is still hope
The gentle hands of my
mother
Every day serving food
Our kitchen table will
be in another country
And the people who ate
with us
Are no longer here
But we will return to
gather
In the morning lights
And the darkness nights
At the strong sound of
the rain
My aunties give this
wisdom to my cousins
My parents give it to
my brother and me
to conserve our
specials secrets.
*
Fruit trees
**A
pun in Mexico
***Epazote,
corn,apples, melon and pomegranate
—
WRITE YOUR POEM
Our food is not only food
It’s a way to communicate our feelings
It’s a way to talk with our family
It’s our history, our identity
Nathaly teaches us that to create in any "genre" whether it be cooking, writing poems or sewing a quilt that we use it to communicate. Any of these shared art forms are a special code within themselves as much as the heroic couplet or the iambic pentameter.
Use Nathaly's lesson to us here to practice your poem. "Our commute is not only a commute..."
Write your poem in a rain puddle. Write your poem on the wind. Share it with someone today.
