Dear Exile,
Never step back Never a last
Scent of plumeria
When my parents left
You knew it was for good
It’s a herd of horses never
To reclaim their steppes
You became a moth hanging
Down from the sun
Old river Calling to my mother
Kept spilling out of her lungs
Ridgeline vista closed
Into the locket of their gaze
It’s the Siberian crane
Forbidden to fly back after winter
You marbled my father’s face
Floated him as stone over the sea
Further Every minute
Emptying his child years to the land
You crawled back in your bomb
It’s when the banyan must leave
Relearn to cathedral its roots
From Afterland, published by Graywolf Press. Copyright © 2017 Mai Der Vang. Used with permission of Graywolf Press.
“My parents came to this country as Hmong refugees from Laos after the country collapsed and the Vietnam War ended. I wrote this poem for them, who were so viciously uprooted and ripped away from their landscape of belonging, all of which had been prompted by a government’s political agenda. I grieve for a country that I know they can never truly return to.”
—Mai Der Vang
Mai Der Vang
Mai Der Vang's debut poetry collection, Afterland, was selected by Carolyn Forché as the winner of the 2016 Walt Whitman Award, given by the Academy of American Poets.