Transplants and Pruning

Transplants and Pruning

(“But those branches were broken off because they did not believe. And you continue to be part of the tree only because you believe. Don’t be proud, but be afraid.” Romans 11:20)

Adopted, you would not know it, though differences of appearance,
tiny and blurred, existed from day one. Dark eyes and a wide chin,
curly hair and a vocabulary spoken from origins beyond recognition.

Walls of separation, stone upon ritual and smoke upon the hills,
built the locked borders between families, clans, tribes and races;
we hate the mixing spoons and would rather eat what we always ate
at grandma’s Thanksgiving banquets.

We define pure by derivation, appetizing by custom,
and characterize our neighbors’ brand last names as
evidence of another fearful conspiracy.

How sad some must be, how anxious and red-eyed,
to lose their sleep, waste their intelligence, over
genealogies of purebred humans kept apart for
strictly ceremonial reasons.

Fasten the storm windows tight before the
predicted grand tornado touches down,
grinding lawns and driveways, uptown
and downtown,
asphalt and tacos, fish sauce and yoga pants
into an autonomous goulash; we all had
it coming.

Could our judgment be that we, adopted by
our Elsewhere King, have the boundaries dissolved,
the deportees absolved, and our neighbors involved
in a family portrait of unnatural connections;

Adoption, with radical differences aside,
creating the photo we feared, but, (hair and bald,
swarthy and pale) unearthed out of
the rubble and classical pride, a new fascination
with faith the center; differences of delight.