Textbook

New Berlin Wall

My friend became the head of the house at nine –

His father’s death, an ambiguous tragedy.  The oldest

Of three boys, his youth became a message on a restroom

Wall, painted over by the expectations of machismo –

Carving hard lines on his face.

His school textbooks replaced by weekly paychecks,

Watching the fields, learning the orchards – he caught on

Quickly and appreciated each experience – as his brothers

Lazed in that town in central Mexico.  His mother worked

Hard and cried often.

Three years before his classmates’ quinceaneros,

Ramone left behind the only home, the only house,

He had ever known, moving to the States, the South, where

The land needed tending.

A dozen years old, his were hands agile, his eyes fixed ahead,

His demeanor quiet, his mind quick and thoughtful - filled

With lessons he could not have learned from a book.

His days start early but go by quickly.  His nights are dark

And long on his single mattress beneath Our Lady Guadalupe. 

All the paychecks returning to that town in central Mexico.

He rarely speaks of home.  But when he does,

His words are slow, delicate and deliberate, his accent

Turns to the south.  I think of the new Berlin Wall

Growing higher each day, his family still below

That border.  Their seasons – el otono, la primavera,

El verano.  His seasons – apple, strawberry, tobacco, 

Sweet potato.  When he speaks of the fields, his accident could be

Mistaken for a redneck’s.  I wander to that late night in a diner

When a wolf in coyote clothing glared at Ramone

Stating with certainty, You are nothing. But I know

You are a man your mother would be proud of.

Now an old man at 27, he works at a family-owned restaurant –

A chef – proudly turning those apples, strawberries, sweet potatoes

Into meals for families dressed in their Sunday best, sitting

Complacent, like me with this pen in my hand.  But he takes

The lessons of his life and creates his American dream.