The Indelible and Invisible 

The Indelible and Invisible 

November 20, 2022
Author
Miriella Jiffar
Miriella Jiffar
Editorial Staff
Art
Kate Jane Villanueva
Katie Jane Villanueva
Media Staff
Aethiopia Abyssinia Aksum Kush All names thrown around by history books by scholars Attempting to intellectualize rationalize standardize the place my parents call home Forgotten empires Folded between dusty pages of long-lost narratives This cradle of civilization the birthplace of man That our ancestress Lucy knew so well Australopithecus afarensis 3.2 million years ago Searching for humanity’s origin I’m simply brought back to mine neither here nor there Longing to find meaning in space and time
Mystery and Wonder for the ancients Greece’s Herodotus Rome’s Ovid Detailing their geographic fantasies Αἰθιοπία “burnt faces” Weaving into their tapestry Andromeda: Perseus’s Aethiopian Queen The anomaly of conquest The only country on my AP Euro map Without a colonizer’s stamp My eyes are always drawn to that center point The Horn of Africa Where north and south meet.Pricked and Prodded by Italian greed, Staunch in their pride, relentless resistance 1935. Invasion. Why my mother’s mother has straight hair
Galusso her surname, My mother’s inherited greek-olive skin. Our shared Mitochondrial DNA remains. An epigenetic history written in each and every cell. Decades later, revolution, a coup d’etat. A fallen nation, bereft, left to pick up the pieces. Children, flung far. Diaspora. Home is not safe anymore. I wonder how strange it must have been, to leave, just 13.Enveloped in languages unfamiliar. America, this promised land, full of opportunity. The best country in the world! My dad always says.
Wholeheartedly, Sincerely, With so much love for our U. S. of A. The Fourth of July is his favorite holiday. But I am lost, adrift in this brand new world of French greetings and Italian goodbyes La bise Ciao! Ciao! The ghost of their language is trailing me, haunting me. The Amharic I know the country and customs I don’t Metaphors and idioms that never translate quite right. When I try to speak, nothing comes out. A soundless void. I’m afraid I’ll forget, losing it all.
So I scribble here, praying somehow these lines retain Where we’ve come from And where I have yet to go. Proudly, I claim my birthright — my jus soli. From this land of the free, The fruit of their labors, Ripe with every possibility. Yet still, I am at war. Juxtaposed and interposed. The past permeates. It presses And impresses an indelible, invisible mark into my Present.

 

 

Identity
Poetry