After the Game - a Sestina for @AbuBility & @LBility (the Twins) on #NDOW #WHYIWRITE @WritingProject

If I traced the veins from a leaf (on the back of my hand), the roadways would be many and the stories plentiful. Today is the National Day on Writing, but it is also the birthday of Abu and Lossine Bility, the twins, who have walked, driven, and sailed with me since I met them in a library in 2008 in Syracuse, New York, 12 years ago today. Because of them my life was redirected for the better and I am thankful.

We're all given one leaf upon this life tree, and lines can be traced alongside theirs. Abu & Lossine helped me to understand the power of ubuntu, the importance of family, and the joy of laughter more than I knew was possible. Every year, October 20th, the National Day on Writing, I also get to celebrate Captain Splash and Lieutenant Glue Stick, both sidekicks to my Dr. Lick 'em. Between them in the photograph to the left is an individual who deserves awards and accolades for all she's provided. They are a result of the warrior woman who raised them - their mother who fought for them and did everything she could so they would have a chance in this world - the truest superhero of them all.

The National Park Service/NWP prompt for today came at a perfect time. I looked at my hands and started tracing their veins, but then went with intricacies of a leaf. This, set upon the oldest picture I have of Abu & Lossine, reminded me of the semester we spent in a library talking and putting story to page. Stories matter: they lead to driving lessons, soccer games, high school graduations, college, summer employment, building the Connecticut Writing Project, Crandall specials, alien invasions, teaching, and adulthood. 

From every leaf, a labyrinth of hope and possibility.

I'm thanking Ranger Ann from Capitol Reef National Park for prompting today's thinking. I didn't label the lanes or bifurcated intricacy of the leaf, but was able to name memories put them in sestina form, the traditional structure that offered me a way to branch language into a poem. This one was written for their birthdays. Happy B-Day, boys. Phew. Years fly by.

After the Game (2008) - a Sestina

At first, we’re all new to the field - immigrants,

arriving to green grasses, Sudan, Somalia, Liberia,

with histories intertwined & ready to be written

from veined leaves of colonial and imperial games

that uprooted ways of being…ways of life - 

it’s a global story, after all, and we’re in this together.

They were 15-years old and education brought us together -

stories shared between a teacher, youth (aren’t we all immigrants?),

sitting at a table talking about war, “Ah, man soccer is life!”

Charles Taylor, Samuel Doe, violent coups in Liberia,

running from bullets, losing family, hiding, death, it’s a game:

crying, laughing, hoping, praying, dreaming - and we’re writing,

capturing words to page that have never been written.

We are weak on our own, but stronger together -

“Tell me more about life in the refugee camp.” They discuss the games

played in dirt with bags taped into balls, the sport of immigrants,

Mandingo twins caught in civil war, violence, Monrovia, Liberia

“The man in charged wanted to kill everybody…to take life

from others. He wanted power.” Uprooted. Displaced. A refugee’s life.

“Now We’re busy. We play on varsity. Video games. YouTube. Who has time to write?”

Yet they do. Excel. Gaining honor in a new society. Boys from Liberia

on a team of twelve nationalities in an American High School playing together.

“The kids who were born here cheat off us, immigrants,

because we do our homework. Stay up late. Study before and after the game.”

“Playing in the suburbs is the worst, too,” they say. “Did you see their fans at the game?"

Stands were filled, cheering & chanting “Go back to Africa." Such privileged lives.

“Our mom works three jobs. All our parents do. We’re immigrants

and they can’t take off work to watch us play.” I have a note pad and I write.

The boys tell me everything. What fortune it is to be together,

stitching history and truth in the United States, in a library

with so many books and resources. “We're proud Liberians,

proud to be American, land of milk and honey. Here we can enter the game.

Here, we need three things to be successful as we work together:

Education. Education. Education. We have to take advantage of the life

given to us. In America, learning is free and it’s up to us to do what is right.”

Lady Liberty. Huddled masses yearning to breathe free. Sunset gate for immigrants,

opened for these young Liberian men, a leaf, offering the chance for a new life,

before 2016 changed how the game is played and hate rebuilt itself on walls writing

another narrative for our nation...what we’re supposed to be…this land built by immigrants.

All love, as always. Shoes and elephants. Elephants and shoes.