Thu nguyện Autumn prayer

Autumn prayer

it is here I receive all news,
old news of the world,
not my own
but with a passable scent

from an old man
with passable pity

he tells me about
unit title lesson number
& I swallow

until he mentions Vietnam
(the war)
that is
when I really start to listen
if I can’t be heroine
call me ornament immigrant

o the boats &
the people on those boats
so brave so different from
the refugees now we owed them

I moisten my tongue
at the sound of
almost home as the name

Duong Thu Huong loses
its river in the teacher’s mouth
and no one asks why
my face is wet.

& remembering my one sad desk,
in the desolation of that classroom
I write a prayer
for the children who fill it next:

let the children speak their names as their mothers do.
let the chorus sing it back or try & try.
let the stories have no accent.
& some sounds stay untranslated.
let the children fill the space with memory.

yes the coriander. yes the silk. yes the stomp. the duplex. the honey.
the beads. yes the asphalt. the drum. the sneakers. the curls. yes the
incense. yes the white bread. yes the chainlink. the copper. yes the
stars. the ballads. the cable buzz. the river. yes the multiple. the
many. yes the love. yes the love.

let the memories be told by the hearts they tumored.
let the children know the name of their melancholy.
let them shape the vowels into hope.
& draw from ancestral hymn.
let honor make no hostages of them.
let their bloodlines become primary text.
let what they’ve seen become their language.