the tree

to the migrants

So - where are you from?
A quiet question gnawing, eating into my foundations
I remember being confused of who i was as a kid

Grandparents moving from China to Malaysia
parents from Malaysia to Singapore
me from Singapore to New Zealand
Trajectories shifting on the ships that sailed us, the altitudes adjusting on the planes that brought us, 
Setting course, changing destinations, economic migration - 
each thread of travel sowing discord, until we look back and go
Who am I
What strange lands have I landed on?

I assure you - this story does get better

If you are here, you will get better at becoming - you.
Culture is an act of becoming, it is not a finality. 
Not something to be benchmarked, but to be witnessed.
It is the distorted reflection on the river - never clear, always fleeting, yet illuminant of the horizon.

Culture is a birthright, not an expectation.
It is not "when I am ready", it is right now.
It is not the perfection , it is the trying: because tell me - when you are choking, does your body attempt a perfect breath? 

Because breath is all we have, 
just like breath, let it
Go - a going, a neverending journey

Culture is a journey, so start it when you can.
Dance with the poetry of your ancestors
till the strange becomes familiar
and the familiar becomes strange

Until the day when 
our dance untangles the knots in our veins,
rich blood pumping as we utter
our mother's tongue that spread like roots
flowing so far it reaches and searches
and kisses the lands we are from
until we look back and go:
my, what a beautiful magnificent tree 
that sprouted
from the pains that we endured
from the memories we have seen
setting sail 
for home

Cover Art by Bill Crisafi
https://www.billcrisafi.com/collections/fine-art-prints