O California, tell me,
what has been buried
beneath you?
: My ancestral bone
and tongue and your veins
that I string like beads
around my neck.
Here on the mountainside
I am draped in your fibers,
I am listening for your voice
on the wind, where I once
thought I heard you whisper.
O California, I stood
at the podium you erected
but no one listened to my song.
Is my throat no longer the incubator
of your rock-slide voice?
Am I no longer your reparations
puppet? If I could survive it,
I would gather my things:
acorn mush and basket hat
and bundle of juncus drying
on the dash of my Ford Fiesta.
If I could survive it, I would dig
my history from your chest,
California, I would pull it warm
and beating from this ground.
Would I not have then seized my own
breast? We are made from the same soil.
O California, I know you hear it too.
The way the poppies rustle
in the wind, they sound like a chorus
of breath. My people are inhaling,
California. My people are opening
their mouths to sing.
Copyright © 2026 by Emily J. Clarke. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on November 10, 2026, by the Academy of American Poets.
