that north is north. How,
when I look at a map of the world, do I decide
which puzzled shape is
home? And in the picture
book I gave him about pharaohs, how
can pyramids date back four-thousand years
if all the years we count, each time
we write the date, are two-thousand
My student is 27, or 25, or 29—he does not know
for sure. He does not know
of dinosaurs or Darwin, of Santa or satellites or germs
or genes, of how his daughter can look not like him and not
like his wife, but like the returned spirit
of his father, killed
by army bullets many harvests past, when
farmers in his village stood accused
of sharing rice with rebel troops.
But he knows
how to ride a water buffalo,
how to find the best bamboo,
how to cut it, carry it, transform it
into walls and floor and roof to last
three rainy seasons.
He knows how to spear a fish,
how to shroud the dead.
He knows how to speak the language of his people,
and the language of the government his people fled,
and the language of the refugee camp
where he grew from boyhood into marriage.
He knows how to write
of each of these, which mattered little, before now,
because no one else he knew had ever needed
And now, in his new American home,
he has learned to read
a third grade book
and to drive a car,
to walk in snow,
to use lightbulbs, laptops, house keys.
He's learned how to live with a silent tongue
in this book-rich land
whose people carry Moses, Medusa, Mars, and
the moon as lightly
as pennies in their pockets.
He's learned how to stack parcels
all night for FedEx, and go to classes
in the day, and to keep
going, day after day, knowing
he has entered a life enormously full
of words that point
in the world he thought he knew, holes
through which he still can hope
to someday slip
into another life, easier
This poem was originally posted by Off the Coast, fall 2015.
The WRAP youth group currently has around 18 members aged 12-20 who meet on Saturday afternoons to discuss issues of health, leadership, goal-setting and more. Each youth helps the refugee community through a variety of ways, translation services, homework help, volunteering at events and more. The youth group also explores different activities such as yoga, wall-climbing, boxing, dance, bowling, and baseball