Luisa

Updated: Nov 5

You were born in a storm,

In the California hills.

Wild poppies bent the knee to you,

as you emerged into the world.

The year was 1920.

You grew up barefoot trampling through fields of wildflowers

Desert marigolds grasped between your fingers

Running through the vineyard

Resting under the shade of the big oak tree.

That was your world.

You hadn’t learned yet

how to measure yourself against everyone else.

Then your mother died, from the grapes.

It was your first day of kindergarten.

Did your whole world change in that moment?

Or did it take time for the truth to seep in, like water

into parched soil.

Did the wildflower-strewn fields slowly lose their color,

Until one day you looked up and the whole world was gray?

Soon after, the Great Depression came, and that's where you learned scarcity.

A jar of peanut butter became a family jewel.

You knew not to eat the grapes.

You knew not to expect anything to last.

Your whole world had changed.

And yet,

the birds of paradise still cawed from their roots in the soil.

The oak tree still gave an abundance of shade.

The poppies still bowed their heads in reverence

to you, wild and barefoot, your dark hair

a storm refusing to be quelled.

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