#heritageandmemory

My grandmother had arrived, parked wrong, rain pouring down, one suitcase, one bruised eye.

My first teenage year, a woman’s broken heart.

The olive tree in the back of my home guarded my hound’s home, ten puppies of different breeds. It gave nothing but fresh shade.

Leaves fell, shaken, the puppies were adopted away.

I kept her emerald earring and a lot of remembrance.

The tree gave me olives. So I left, saw the films, and took the planes.

My grandmother took a belt. "Mother fucker, you’ll behave."

Sand in the air and the gentle terral shade. Homeless, sleepless, wrong reservation dates.

At the end of the night, an open bar, under the first sun, suitcase in hand.

It had taken me back home, near the sand and San Pedro, near the sea and the moon.

Once it stopped giving, my dad trimmed the tree, ready to throw out the sticks.

But I knew, with or without olives, it could hold me tight.

Diamond Press, muscles sore, drop by drop, a bottle came.

Olive oil is sweet. It softens my hair, heals my gut when I am abroad, far from home.

Under the sun, it has warmed my heart, penetrating a soft bed of clouds until it touched the crust.

And the whole world is new, and the birds sing in my life.

And when it touches tomato—oh my!