Challenging Poetry

Uzbekistan: foreign exchange

I remember when
the world began to blossom,
like a rose unfurling petals
out of the remnants of the
Soviet Union to
sprout old countries
long hidden,
long silent,
long forgotten.

my sister left, then,
for distant places
where letters made
different sounds,
and when she came back,
she brought a new brother.

six months. he sang with us
and weeded our garden
and ate our food
and laughed with our father
and honored our mother
until he left again for home
in a distant country
where ancient cities echo
their lonely history to the dust,
and he stepped into
the beginnings of his own garden—
so far away.

line count: 27

Author's Note ▶︎

My personal connection with Uzbekistan is with a foreign exchange student who lived with our family for six months when I was a sophomore in college. My sister Joy had gone to Russia on a foreign exchange in 1996, so when the opportunity came for us to be a host family, my parents went for it.

Our Uzbeki brother was a good kid, studious, funny, willing to do chores, although he had a little bit of an issue with the fact that my sisters are intelligent and stubborn, unwilling to accept correction from a new brother. He didn't try it with me, of course. I met him at Christmas, and then again when I came home for the summer, and then he went back home, to take what he had learned about American culture and live with it for the rest of his life.

We're still facebook friends. I get notes from him from time to time. I have a picture of him with the family in a series of six wallet size frames that I keep pictures of my siblings in.