Poem #14: Pride

A teacher once asked me

to describe pride.

She meant pride in our country,

in our society and in our nationalism.

Pride meant something different for me.

She said I should go home

and think about our accomplishments

and feel the things that make us one.

So I went home and laid on the grass

in my backyard where

orange trees bloom

bright and white and delicate

and I looked up at the sky

where I saw blue

and I looked up at the orange trees

where I saw white

and I looked up at my father

standing over me

and I saw red.

When I went back to school

the next day

and my teacher asked me about pride

I told her pride was

a thing of love

a thing of pain

a thing of life

and she gave me an A

thinking I meant

the love for my country

the united pains of a people

the collective life of all within.

But what I meant was

the love for my strong father

the pain of his whip

and my life of secrecy.