Who I Was, Isabel Patterson

Who I Was

by Isabel Patterson

I was born in the Cradle of the Revolution,

a landscape pressed with sweeping mountains and roving hills

that descend onto the course of the flowing Gan river,

from the broad rice patties dressed properly in hues of green

to the brown soil underfoot that began the Long March.

I was born into a country brimmed full of breath,

beauty, and the inevitable reality of loss,

spoken throughout the country and echoed

in resounding chambers of my heart,

constantly probing for the definite answer.

I was taken to the land of the Great Lakes,

an icy winter tempress and a mild summer sentinel

that yielded its gaze from the changing temperaments

of the mighty lakes and their surrounding course

around her supple and tender edges.

I was taken to state replete in the joy

of being a child, an area of picking sour green blueberries

or falling forwards in the snow covered ground,

bounding up the high-storied library, waiting

for my dad to catch up.

I was taught with the world as my playground,

an ever shifting environment tempered by my will

to stay grounded and in control like the heated

harmattan spewing red dust into every corner and crevice,

before the torrential summer rains washed it out.

I was taught in the humid Ghanian air a

nd through the tepid Zambian breezes,

catching myself stuck in my little British books,

my little British friends, Nigel, Harry, all us peculiarly together,

foreign friends in a foreign book in a foreign country.

I was raised on the high peaking Cumberland plateau,

a photograph of tranquil stretching woods

filled with prowling deer, twisting their dainty necks

and perking their ears up at the noise of a passing car,

akin to a curious child unaware of the danger.

I was raised reconciling scattered piece of my life

together, struggling to find an explanation concealed

in my maze of memories, hazy fragments

fading in and out of focus collectively congealed

in a perfectly imperfect unanswered answer.