~
Apricots in the Old Country
And the children say, Mother, you’ve been dreaming again.
All night I wandered through a garden of eyes,
hands warm with the peat of plucked tongues.
Tearing bark into stone soup again. Saying goodbye
to faces that are fading. When I said goodbye
to my mother, I watched her hair turn into snow,
and my hands are still numb from their drift.
Years since I fled the old country; years
since I tread my new home. And still
there are nights full of crushed light
and throats, when the whisper of ghosts
become thunder. O my head is pounding
with thunder. How easy to say, The old country
is dead: full of bloodreek & hunger & lies.
But it comes to me also in laughter and zeal,
in first love & last partings & yearning.
The stars there were so bright, I could count
every one. And apricots sweet enough
for the hurting. They dripped milk and honey
from the weather-bronzed branches,
and we clamored to taste of their nectar.
All day I glean fruit from these bittersweet trees,
feeling watched by a forest of souls.
They might be alive, they might be asleep.
They might be alive. Or alive.
~
Esther Ra
Esther Ra is the author of ‘book of untranslatable things’ (Grayson Books, 2018) and the founding editor of The Underwater Railroad, a literary reunification project. Her work has also been published in Boulevard, Rattle, The Rumpus, The Korea Times, and Border Crossing, among others. She has been the recipient of numerous awards, including the Pushcart Prize and the 49th Parallel Award for Poetry. In writing, as in life, she is deeply interested in the quiet beauty of the ordinary.