I Will Never Know My Motherland

Centuries of footsteps paved the dirt roads 
that weave through the land of my ancestors.
The blood drumming through their veins
chants the name of a home that gave them everything.
My mother’s mother,
and her mother before that,
moulded the earth’s memory to the sound of their footfalls
dancing under the cool rain; 
rain that grew the flowers they wove into their thick, dark hair,
and watered the grass they lay in.
Their souls intertwined with the roots of the plants that fed them.

I tried to believe my blood could change 
which rhythm of the earth’s pulse it beat to.
Running away from those who fought for me to live,
I turned the mountains between us into barricades.
Passing prayers were all I had to give,
as I watched a land and its people dying 
for crimes they didn’t commit.
I shook my head, clutched my chest,
let myself pity the way they were oppressed.

I now mourn
the land that shaped but never raised me,
cry for a people who love but never hugged me.
Letting the branches of my family tree crumble under flames,
my identity is written in its ashes.

Hands trembling with vibrations of a missile, 
I watch the earth

s h a t t e r .

Once lush with vegetation,
the soil splits open, 
singed roots gasp at the fiery air.
Pink and purple petals turn to dust,
and the embroidery of our heritage
pulled thread by thread,
diminishes to gray rags.
The smoke sweeps away spices we once cooked with,
our music chokes and dies on the scorched air.
I’m left with nothing
but the tatters of my motherland.