Wang Ping: Pick of the Week [ed. Terence Winch]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wang Ping on the rooftop of Rudy Burckhardt's apartment building in NYC. Photo by Rudy Burckhardt.

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Our Prayers on Father’s Day

Dear God, we are not child actors. We are children. Real children.

Dear God, where is my papa and mama? We just walked 3,000 miles, fighting coyotes along the way. We thought we’d be safe once we crossed the Rio Grande.

Dear God, you said everyone is born equal, every life is a gift, and the kingdom of heaven resides in the mustard seed.

Dear God, we are small and young. Some of us just learned to walk, some still wear diapers, and some are still nursing. Are we not your tiny mustard seeds, dear God?

You say a kid must not be boiled or eaten in mother’s milk. Why are you ripping us from our mother’s breasts, from our father’s hands?

Dear God, we have lost everything: our country, our home, our friends and tomorrow. We have nothing left but our papa and mama. Please give them back.

Dear God, here’s my mama’s number. Here’s my papa’s number. Here’s my aunt’s number. I have it memorized. Please call so we can get out of this dog kennel.

Dear God, you cried for donkeys moaning under loads and falling on the roadside. Are you crying for us, as we fall off la bestia, crushed under tren de la muerte?

Dear God, you wept when you heard starving baby ravens crying from the nest. Are you weeping for us, Lord, as you hear our wailing for papa and mama from the cage?

Dear God, we followed your law to flee from danger: a burning forest, a roaring tsunami, a raging war, violent gangs.

But dear God, it’s been months since I was yanked from mama’s breasts, since I’m left in the cage, crawling in circles . . . as I turn the tender age of 11 months old.

Dear God, we didn’t want to leave home, walk 3,000 miles, or fall off la bestia.

Dear God, we are not criminals or child actors. We just want our mama and papa. Our parents are not criminals or actors. They just want to raise us. There’s no script. Our only word is to live, like all God’s children.

Do not turn off the light on us, dear God. Do not throw away the key to our cage. Give back our papa and mama, dear Lord. Do not forsake us, alone, terrified, drowning in our tears. Hear our cries on Father’s Day. Hear the cries of our fathers and mothers, dying from the death sentence of separation.

Dear God, please let us be children again, like arrows in the hands of a warrior. For we’re your mustard seeds, your heritage, keys to thy kingdom of heaven, dearest God.

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Wang Ping was born in China and came to the U.S. in 1985. Her publications of poetry and prose include American Visa, Foreign Devil, Of Flesh and Spirit, New Generation: Poetry from China Today, Aching for Beauty: Footbinding in China, The Magic Whip, The Dragon Emperor, The Last Communist Virgin, Flashcards: Poems by Yu Jian, Ten Thousand Waves, and Life of Miracles along the Yangtze and Mississippi (AWP 2017 award for non-fiction). She won the Eugene-Kayden Award for the Best Book in Humanities and is the recipient of an NEA felllowship, the Bush Artist Fellowship for poetry, the McKnight Fellowship for non-fiction, and many other awards. She received her Distinct Immigrant Award in 2014, and Venezuela International Poet of Honor in 2015. She is the Minnesota Poet Laureate 2021-23, appointed by International Beat Poetry Foundation. She’s also a photographer, installation artist, and flamenco dancer. Her multi-media exhibitions include “Behind the Gate: After the Flood of the Three Gorges” and “Kinship of Rivers,” shown at schools, colleges, galleries, museums, lock and dams, and confluences along the Mississippi River. She is professor emerita of English at Macalester College and founder and director of Kinship of Rivers project.

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                                    Rudy Burckhardt 6 fotos,1992

 

Comments

[Indran Amirthanayagam]

Thank you Ping. This subject roars through all of us. I wrote "The Migrant's Reply" in The Migrant States on this subject. I tip my hat to you for reminding us of our charge, our responsibility, our shame, our chance for redemption. In love and poetry. Indran

[Grace Cavalieri]

Ping rips the lid off of the boxes of denial
Everything flies out looking like words
Cannot be put back

Thank you Ping

[Dustin Pickering]

Excellent and emotive commentary from a child's perspective. We need to let the emotions of this border crisis flow from poetic pens so people are able to relate emotionally to the victims. Poems such as this enable us to see new perspectives. Shedding light on the "child actor" conspiracies through an impactful verse may change some minds. We can only hope!

[Eileen]

This heart wrenching poem should be posted on the editorial page of every newspaper a cry for help that needs a response.

[David Lehman]

Great post: both poem and photos. Kudos all around.

[Tommy Sheffield]

Incredible poem! As always, Ping's poetry contains struggle, heartache, and a brilliance that shines through it all.

[Ben Kreilkamp]

This speaks very clearly to my sense of fatherhood. The essence of fatherhood is to protect our children, and this is the fundamental sense of decency that our border policy offends. Eloquent. Thank you for bringing us Ping's words.

[Maureen owen]

Wang Ping has said it all on this Father's Day.

[Marc]

Ah, to be a child again and sail away into the furthest clouds.
Thank you, Ping!

[ping wang]

thank you everyone, for your support! you truly give me hope for America! You make America truly beautiful!
Thank you, Best American Poetry!

[Clarinda harriss]

Invincible this poem. Hear hear

[Terence Winch]

DL: Glad you liked it.

[Terence Winch]

Ben: thanks for the comment.

[Richard J Broderick]

Thank you for posting this. Wang Ping is one of America's -- no, the world's -- most accomplished poets and writers. More of Wang Ping, please!

[lally]

yay wang ping for your brilliant poetry and activism and example

[Andy Galvin]

Thanks for posting this. Ping is an amazingly brilliant poet.

[Ira Rifkin]

Your work always moves me. Thanks.

[Thea Temple]

Thank you once again, Wang Ping, for poetry as lean, raw, and muscular as a child's beating heart.

[Andy Lininger]

This is very beautiful. Prayer like art and poetry is foundation of growth and change for the better. Happy to have you lead us.

[Kerry Shawn Keys]

Wang Ping

thank you for writing this poem, and pleased to see it here!

[Nirmal Ghosh]

"Dear God, here’s my mama’s number. Here’s my papa’s number. Here’s my aunt’s number. I have it memorized. Please call so we can get out of this dog kennel."

Intense, left me almost shaking. Whew!! Thank you.
(great picture of you btw)

[Patricia Messer]

That writing is powerful!

I am so grateful you followed the unknown to your truth.

So many others would have taken prestige and settled to be a professor’s wife.
Clearly some people are educated beyond their intelligence: Many are the educational elitism.

Our experiences and free spirit allow us to follow a deeper call for expression in whatever direction we choose.

[Jeff hansen]

Thanks for this poem. Thanks for thinking of us fathers on our day.

[Peter Kearney]

This deeply moving poem starts with "Dear God" and ends with "Dearest God." What a lovely expression of unflinching faith! No wonder Jesus said we need to be like little children.

[Michael Moore]

Unspoken whispers of the heart. crying out to the hypocrisy in the world... we live in biblical times. Wang Ping's voice is an arrow straight to the truth covered by the layers of rhetorical lies.