Living the In-Between

It’s been a while! Since my last post, I have been busy writing poetry and submitting to various publications; working on a novel (my big project for 2020 and the main reason why you won’t see too many posts this year!); and meeting once a month with a small, supportive group of writers. Here is my latest poem, which has been submitted to the Canadian magazine Living Hyphen for consideration in their next issue on the theme of “Across Generations”. (Don’t worry, their guidelines say that it’s ok for work to be previously published as long as the writer retains all rights.) You may have noticed that the poem title is the same as my website title, but this time it has an entirely different meaning.

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I live between the last and the next,
One foot in a place familiar but strange
Where roots run deep and twisted
And branches long,
One foot forward on this land
Where I was planted,
Grafted to bloom.

I am called the first generation,
A label to wear like a brass plaque.
But “first” is too lofty a term for
Low-hanging fruit,
When I hear tales of growing crops,
Of playing the accordion in their shade,
Of crossing oceans.

I want to know them, the ones that
came before. To search their faces
And find my Roman nose and
Obsessive mind.
To know their dreams, their reasons
For seeking, in hopes of finding mine.
To touch their soil.

I feel their weight in my veins,
Their fragilities and fortitudes
Carried in their leaves, the
Saudade* — longing —
Running thick through the trunk
Of our collective memory, reaching,
Always reaching,

Down.

*Saudade (noun, Portuguese): a deep personal state of longing, yearning, nostalgia for a person or thing that is absent.