The seed collector
My father, for all the years he lived in exile,
spent afternoons, after he arrived from work,
slicing open pomegranates, guayaba, mangos,
eating of their meaty pulp - then saving the seeds.
He dried them on napkins held down by rocks
on the brick fence post, or he placed them
in plates and left them to dry in the wind
by the open kitchen window. Once I asked
what he was doing with all these seed, and he
spoke of the rarer fruits we didn’t have here
in Los Angeles, the guanabana, the mamey,
mamoncillo and caimito . . . fruit I remember
eating back in my Cuban childhood, but never
again, and he missed them, he said. Las extraño.
He dried the seeds of bonnet peppers, red,
green, aji de cachucha, tomato seeds, Havanero
chilis. . . seeds like teeth in the sun. Why
so many? And he’d stick a hand deep in his
pockets and showed me a hand full of them,
these seeds like gold crumbs in his hands –
He scattered them everywhere as he walked,
on peoples’ yards, in his own, on the medians,
sidewalks, open fields, vacant lots. His mission
was to plant these seeds along his path, a memory
of his days in Cuba, our days in paradise, he said
and walked out of the house toward the setting sun.
Page(s) 36
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