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Monday
My wife recently alerted me to a wonderful poem shared by Robert Reich, former Labor Secretary and Berkeley public policy professor. Reich notes that over 70 percent of those now being detained have no criminal records and that the number of detainees—over 60,000—is almost 45 percent above the capacity provided for by Congress. As a result, “detainees in at least seven states are complaining of overcrowding, food shortages, and hunger.”
Reich adds that many of camps are run by private contractors, who have a history of putting profit over the well-being of their prisoners.
The power of the Alison Luterman poem that Reich posts lies partly in the fact that it doesn’t mention any of this, other than a passing mention of ICE agents “looking for gardeners and maids escaping over the back fences.” Instead, the poet focuses on the vibrancy of the immigrant communities and the gifts they offer to the rest of us.
Monday
My wife recently alerted me to a wonderful poem, shared by Robert Reich, former Labor Secretary and Berkeley public policy professor on his substack blog. Reich notes that over 70 percent of those now being detained have no criminal records and that the number of detainees—over 60,000—is almost 45 percent above the capacity provided for by Congress. As a result, “detainees in at least seven states are complaining of overcrowding, food shortages, and hunger.”
Reich adds that many of camps are run by private contractors, who have a history of putting profit over the well-being of their prisoners.
The power of the Alison Luterman poem that Reich posts lies partly in the fact that it doesn’t mention any of this, other than a passing mention of ICE agents “looking for gardeners and maids escaping over the back fences.” Instead, the poet focuses on the vibrancy of the immigrant communities and the gifts they offer to the rest of us.
And vulnerable though they may seem in the face of Trump’s crackdowns, Luterman observes that they are tough and resilient. What the authorities don’t realize is
the mycelian nature
of kinship, how love is a weed
that travels across borders in a bird’s belly
and pops up waving its arms, no matter the law.
Here’s the poem. “Mycellian” means branching and connecting while “los vecinos” means “the neighbors.”
Los Vecinos
By Alison Luterman
Teresa, our Mexican neighbor,
climbs our porch steps on arthritic legs,
carrying a plate of fresh tamales,
still warm, wrapped in cloth,
because they’re having a cook-out in their yard
with all the tias and grandbabies,
and we’re included in the golden circle
of familia, through no virtue
of our own, yet here she is again at our door
with a plate of something delicious, or a big plastic bag
filled with nopales from the edible pads
of the giant cactus in their yard
which she has skinned and cubed and boiled
in salted water. They’re slippery as okra
and tart as lemons and she swears they will cure
a long list of ailments, including
but not limited to cancer, high blood pressure,
diabetes…standing on our porch, leaning
against the railing, she enumerates
the benefits while I smile and nod, “Si, si, gracias…”
My friend who lives in a rich neighborhood
says she’s seen ICE patrolling, looking for gardeners
and maids escaping over the back fences of Marin.
They’re tearing apart families like clumps
of seedlings, uprooting whole delicate
ecosystems, but what they don’t
understand is the mycelian nature
of kinship, how love is a weed
that travels across borders in a bird’s belly
and pops up waving its arms, no matter the law.
Our block resounds with spangled mariachi tunes
all summer long, and I’d be lying if I said
I wasn’t jealous some evenings,
lying awake while parties go on all around us,
because this land is their land, and this devotion
is tough and wild and joyous and Teresa can’t read
the red card that says Know Your Rights
in English and Spanish that I give her, nor understand
how I make a living, but she knows
what to do with the leaves of the guava tree
growing along our driveway, whose leaves
are medicinal in dozens of ways–whose leaves,
like the Bible says, are given for the healing of the nations.
The image of a weed traveling across borders reminds me of the turtle in the third chapter of The Grapes of Wrath. Steinbeck notes various ways that seeds are carried:
The concrete highway was edged with a mat of I tangled, broken, dry grass, and the grass- heads were heavy with oat beards to catch on a dog’s coat, and foxtails to tangle in a horse’s fetlocks, and clover burrs to fasten in sheep’s wool; sleeping life waiting to be spread and dispersed, every seed armed with an appliance of dispersal twisting darts and parachutes for the wind, little spears and balls of tiny thorns, and all waiting for animals and for the wind, for a man’s trouser cuff or the hem of a woman’s skirt, all passive but armed with appliances of activity, still, but each possessed of the anlage of movement.
In this chapter, the carrier is a turtle, which functions as a symbol of the migrant Joad family who will soon begin their journey to California. This turtle has several grasses caught in its shell, but there is no guarantee that it will cross the road safely. One car swerves to miss it and one car swerves to hit it, but in the end, the turtle keeps plodding on. When it reaches the other side, Steinbeck reports,
The wild oat head fell out and three of the spearhead seeds stuck in the ground. And as the turtle crawled on down the embankment, its shell dragged dirt over the seeds.
We focus on how our immigrant communities are being hammered by Trump’s deportation policies, but Luterman’s poem reminds us that these people are “tough and wild and joyous.” And that, in spite of it all, they refuse to be defeated.
Vulnerable though they may seem in the face of Trump’s crackdowns, Luterman observes that they are tough and resilient. What the authorities don’t realize is
the mycelian nature
of kinship, how love is a weed
that travels across borders in a bird’s belly
and pops up waving its arms, no matter the law.
Here’s the poem. “Mycellian” means branching and connecting while “los vecinos” means “the neighbors.”
Los Vecinos
By Alison Luterman
Teresa, our Mexican neighbor,
climbs our porch steps on arthritic legs,
carrying a plate of fresh tamales,
still warm, wrapped in cloth,
because they’re having a cook-out in their yard
with all the tias and grandbabies,
and we’re included in the golden circle
of familia, through no virtue
of our own, yet here she is again at our door
with a plate of something delicious, or a big plastic bag
filled with nopales from the edible pads
of the giant cactus in their yard
which she has skinned and cubed and boiled
in salted water. They’re slippery as okra
and tart as lemons and she swears they will cure
a long list of ailments, including
but not limited to cancer, high blood pressure,
diabetes…standing on our porch, leaning
against the railing, she enumerates
the benefits while I smile and nod, “Si, si, gracias…”
My friend who lives in a rich neighborhood
says she’s seen ICE patrolling, looking for gardeners
and maids escaping over the back fences of Marin.
They’re tearing apart families like clumps
of seedlings, uprooting whole delicate
ecosystems, but what they don’t
understand is the mycelian nature
of kinship, how love is a weed
that travels across borders in a bird’s belly
and pops up waving its arms, no matter the law.
Our block resounds with spangled mariachi tunes
all summer long, and I’d be lying if I said
I wasn’t jealous some evenings,
lying awake while parties go on all around us,
because this land is their land, and this devotion
is tough and wild and joyous and Teresa can’t read
the red card that says Know Your Rights
in English and Spanish that I give her, nor understand
how I make a living, but she knows
what to do with the leaves of the guava tree
growing along our driveway, whose leaves
are medicinal in dozens of ways–whose leaves,
like the Bible says, are given for the healing of the nations.
The image of a weed traveling across borders reminds me of the turtle in the third chapter of The Grapes of Wrath. Steinbeck notes various ways that seeds are carried:
The concrete highway was edged with a mat of I tangled, broken, dry grass, and the grass- heads were heavy with oat beards to catch on a dog’s coat, and foxtails to tangle in a horse’s fetlocks, and clover burrs to fasten in sheep’s wool; sleeping life waiting to be spread and dispersed, every seed armed with an appliance of dispersal twisting darts and parachutes for the wind, little spears and balls of tiny thorns, and all waiting for animals and for the wind, for a man’s trouser cuff or the hem of a woman’s skirt, all passive but armed with appliances of activity, still, but each possessed of the anlage of movement.
In this chapter, the carrier is a turtle, which functions as a symbol of the migrant Joad family who will soon begin their journey to California. This turtle has several grasses caught in its shell, but there is no guarantee that it will cross the road safely. One car swerves to miss it and one car swerves to hit it, but in the end, the turtle keeps plodding on. When it reaches the other side, Steinbeck reports,
The wild oat head fell out and three of the spearhead seeds stuck in the ground. And as the turtle crawled on down the embankment, its shell dragged dirt over the seeds.
We focus on how our immigrant communities are being hammered by Trump’s deportation policies, but Luterman’s poem reminds us that these people are “tough and wild and joyous.” And that, in spite of it all, they refuse to be defeated.
