My parents’ hands
understand something
about making paradise
that mine are still
trying to figure out.
They’ve coaxed
growth from tiny seeds
and hard earth, brought
forth colors from brown dirt
in the form of green leaves,
red, yellow, orange fruit,
vegetables whose
English names I still
haven’t figured out.
There was a year
when the whole rear
of the yard hosted
home-grown corn
there’s still a patch
of sugarcane in the
corner behind the
makrut lime tree
they planted
dragonfruit just
to see if they could
(it grew)
it took years, but the
cherimoya trees now
bear heavy, juicy
bounty—my favorite.
My grandmother would
wistfully keep mango and
longan seeds, sprout them
in old cans, discarded paper cups,
then plant them, hoping
they’d somehow take to the
less than ideal climate,
find what they needed
in the unfamiliar soil.
After ten years, one
small mango sapling
still survived, bearing the
tiniest mangos I’d ever seen
it made us all giggle,
this tree holding on
so valiantly to life and
putting forth all it could.
Somehow they turned
their modest plot of land
in Santa Ana into a
lush bit of Cambodia
I remember sitting on
the roof one day
and looking over
the tops of the trees
and thinking that
I could almost forget
what country I was in.
My parents—their hands
have a habit of making
paradise wherever there is
a patch of dirt and a hose
I used to wish they’d get
rid of a tree or two, dig up
the yard, put in a swimming pool
I’m glad they never did.
I understand now
that they were never
trying to make paradise
they were making
home.
Originally published in Eleven Eleven Journal.
narinda heng is a queer, Khmer American writer, climber, and potter living on Ohlone land. Her work centers the complexities of history, place, and identity. Find out more at longcoolhallway.com.