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I wrote this poem in 2015 after teaching summer school for English Learners (EL) middle school students who were majority Karen (a persecuted ethnic group in Myanmar). They were brilliant. The young women in that class were fierce and wanted to play soccer just like they saw all the guys doing, so the last day of summer school we did just that, went outside and played the beautiful game.

~The Beautiful Game~

Dribble, pass, shoot.

It was a beautiful day to play a beautiful game.

And, so they decided it was their day too.

To make the plays; to call the shots; to sweat; to not let the fast rhythm
of their breath stop them make the next step; to be proud of what they had
done.

Dribble, pass, shoot.

Thinking back to the days they used to watch and pray. Behind closed walls,
where noises were like thunder, cries of longing told it all.

Dribble, steal, shoot.

Back to the times when they would sit with their mothers and their sisters
and dream of wide-open spaces.

Block, trap, dribble, pass.

Trying to stop the memories from flooding in all at once of terror and of
triumph over a thread of tranquility…that was real at one time.

Shouts, “Pass it, center field, I’m open.”

It is not the fear of hunger, of the killers, of the other, that keeps you
alive. It is the constant rhythm of life; the beauty of a dance at night, the
celebrations that won’t ever stop, it is the sound of your heart as you breathe
in and out in the same beat, overcoming all the memories of how far you have
traveled and what your eyes too young have seen.

Pass, cross it, head it, you made it.

It is that moment when your heart dances to the rhythm of this well-worn
ball, that reminds you

Life, in all its suffocating spaces, is still beautiful.

Goal.

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The Mouse

Today I was on a run

When I saw her next to him

His breathing heavy, eyes closed, barely alive

Sprawled on the middle of a side walk

“What’s going on?” “How did this happen?”

A million thoughts swirled through my head

“Is he going to be alright?”

Swiftly, with the grace of a dancer

She guided his fragile body into her hands

Cradling him like a baby

Standing up with him swaddled in her arms, she spoke in a whisper:

“Thanks for stopping, just to make sure everything was alright”

“No problem”, I panted

And ran off

Thinking of the mouse,

and hoping he’d be alright,

the entire way home.