my people don’t shy away
from the sun, tough questions
or much of anything
my people eat revolution
for breakfast,
having endured centuries
of empty bowls
despotic leaders
foreign meddling
flower waisted women
with eyes like jewels
we bewitch
even as we feed you to the fire
my people are hustlers
drunk off monsoons
one with the ocean
my people are made of bamboo:
tightly woven yet
beautifully flexible
fueled by rice, ginger
and coconut, perfumed
by sweet frangipani
we are lotus and thorn in one
tea drinking warriors
who befriend elephants
eke out scripture on palm leaves
dwellers of a thousand temples
who have wandered every
corner of the earth
i am, as they are,
a tapestry of being