“Pentimento”-Magdalena Magazine
Read more: “Pentimento”-Magdalena MagazineI am honored to be included in Michelle Magdalena’s Magazine, Magdalena which features my poems, “The Swallows of America,” and “Pentimento.”
The poems are really a plea. We can and must keep trying to reason with the unreasonable. The stakes are high and we must persist: there is good worth fighting for, to paraphrase Samwise. My poem, “Pentimento“, is a prayer, an opening, a conversation.
Please buy Magdalena Magazine to read both poems, but here’s a snippet:
from “Pentimento”
The dream is a slow
undulation of waves
Humpbacks ride as they migrate
to plastic islands
She beads a necklace
of dead minnows
When her son
is taken away
A torrent of orders
floods the banks
Tears the child
from the only country
he’s ever known–
his mother’s arms
Like meat
from a bone…(con’t)
*These poems are also included in my chapbook, The Swallows of America, published by Dancing Girl Press.
Haiku: Displacement
Homes lost to cruel war,
Families scattered like leaves
Searching for refuge.
Children’s eyes hold fear,
Silent cries for what was known
Echoes of the past.
New lands, strange and vast,
Hope flickers in weary hearts
Seeds of peace to grow.
Broken Bonds
Borders drawn, lives displaced,
A cruel game, humanity erased.
Families torn, friendships severed,
Dreams once bright, now untethered.
In the search for safety, peace,
Pain and sorrow never cease.
Displacement’s cost, too high to pay,
In shattered lives, it finds its way.
This poem on the surface shows the impact of how humans affect the environment. Many species have gone extinct because us. The same might be the same for humans too. The way things look now, we will be our own demise, because we can’t seem to see eye to eye. People are naturally selfish and would do anything to get what they want. In order become better, we must learn to be selfless and think of others rather than our own needs.
This beautifully written poem reflects the agonizing experience of displacement and focuses on the loss felt by a mother who was separated from her child. While I have no personal experience about this, my mother does. She had to migrate from Mexico when she was pregnant with my sister and while she wasn’t a little kid at the time, the separation was still very painful for her and her mother. She had to push her feelings aside and leave behind her whole life in Mexico in order to move forward to give a better future for my sister and I.
As someone who’s always enjoyed the ocean, I particularly liked the imagery created by the poem. On a deeper level, I also admire the unique symbolism utilized by the poem to represent the experience of being forced to leave one’s home. Reading through Pentimento makes the reader consider with the reality of displacement, an important concept to grapple with in these times.