What it Took to Get Here

 
Don't you wonder sometimes where  
to trace your line, how it is 
your forebears came to claim states 
or provinces from which they derived
their names? The 1852 California census 
lists at least five men citing Manila 
or the Philippines as their birth 
place—one was a seaman, two 
were laborers, the fourth was a cook; 
the other two did not list their 
occupations. In the crew aboard
galleons that plied the route 
between Manila and Acapulco in the 1800s, 
who among them were your great-uncles,
your great-grandfathers? Which of them
wielded the compass and plane, laid
brick or peeled turnips in the ship's 
dank hold? Which waded ashore 
somewhere in Louisiana, sick of dark 
nights rocking in the wet belly 
of the boat, homesick for sun 
and salt? After the World's Fair 
and traveling carnivals packed up, 
who traded in their feathered head-
pieces for a parcel of land 
and a plow, a field of drying
tobacco in Virginia, a dog 
and a plate of fatback? 
Do you look some mornings 
in the mirror and wonder at 
the shape of your nose and brow,
the stirring you feel in your bones
for places you vaguely know?