One Would be Chosen
Janet Kuypers
10/12/19, on the day in 1492 when
Christopher Columbus Discovers America
When I was six years old
Chicago weatherman Harry Volkman
came to visit our grade school
and all of the little kids were asked
to make a card for him,
and one would be chosen,
and the winner would get on stage
to meet this “famed” Chicago weatherman.
Believe it or not, may card won,
with the limerick
Columbus discovered America
in fourteen ninety-two,
and I discovered a weatherman
when I discovered you
and glory be, I took those steps
to get up those stairs
to shake that weatherman’s hand.
And of course, I was six,
our country had existed
for two hundred years,
but a little girl in the first grade
had no idea what the history
of our country really was,
and I still don’t
but seeing how only now
people want to claim
this day marked for “exploration”
as a day to honor those indigenous tribes
whom we all but destroyed...
I look back on my country,
yes, I call it mine,
all my grandparents traveled
to the United States to live here,
some chose to learn the language,
some did not,
but this land,
your land,
my land,
is all I know,
my history is here,
this is my home
but I look back on my country
with its history of bloodshed in independence
our bloodshed in slavery
our bloodshed for civil rights
our bloodshed for...
we seem to be a bloody country
I thought that was only a British term
but I don’t know what I’m supposed to think
of my history, of what made us... us
should I be waving a flag in blind faith
should I be protesting the best life
on this globe anyone could ever imagine
or should I try to understand
how this tattered but resilient quilt
is only a part of my history
and then try to do my damndest
to, instead of apologizing for a past
I had nothing to do with,
understand these pieces,
understand this ragged
but resilient quilt
that is my history,
and try to make
the future of my home
be as beautiful
as it was meant to be
|
