Blooming Lineage

In memory of Pos Moua (1969–2020)

I can believe that nothing has changed if I do not move. Let my partner spiral into the kitchen and turn the stove knob. Listen to the pan sizzle as the eggs drop inside, sliding from the titled coil, crinkling in its orbit. The dog lies by his feet awaiting with ears pulled down, a docile plea.

Sunlight sparkles off the line of parked cars into the living room. The sky is blue and clear as peak spring demands. The nearby highway hushes in its course without hindrance. I close my eyes and memorialize this pretty morning in your wake.

There are many posts recalling and piecing you in the internet space — a collage of father, husband, teacher, mentor, poet, dear friend. And to me, a pioneer grandfather.

I can’t say your name yet. I am not ready to declare this new day.

We gather at a downtown gallery in your city of Merced and I am nervous. I do not know you nor most of the other readers. Your friends put the event together to celebrate your life — they tell me of your cancer diagnosis — and the next generation of writers like me.

I carry only two poems, one finished, and a draft that I rewrite over and over until the last minute when I am called to the podium.

It’s titled “Fate Papers” and I cry through the lines: “In another lifetime, we play together as brothers and sisters. / In this lifetime, I travel to find you / A nomad searching for a family / With the same force in their tongues.”

It is sentimental and wholly inadequate in English but in Hmong I believe they reach you.

After the reading, we meet and you are delighted. You are so proud of me already and I have never been more grateful to drive three hours to be found, here, with you and our friends. After all these lone years, I am finally home.

I try to compose beautiful lines for you but nothing comes out except furious scribbles.

“How dare the sun spotlight your absence — the nerve of light to keep — how awful time stomps on — I want to rip it apart — How dare it — How dare — How dare this fate — this devastation — ”

All of it is ugly because I am wrecked.

I wept for weeks and still can’t write a worthy farewell.

We are descendants of a fragmented heritage and this parting adds to our diaspora. We have only just begun — a revived written tradition, our own narratives rising.

What bittersweet papers.

This orphan one sought you for so long.

Our last meeting is at a small conference — though I don’t know that yet — and you read from your second book, the one where you allowed my poem to be printed alongside yours and other Hmong writers. I have three copies; one inscribed for me, one for my family, one extra just to have. It’s a collection of your works, including poems from your first book published in 2002 that is now out of print.

You speak with unintentional vibrato and clear your throat often, but I attribute it to the colder weather. I am an optimist or willfully ignorant. Your energy is still the same, kind and warm, so I still believe.

We stand outside shaded by a gentle shedding tree and two of our writer friends join us. We form a circle, reminisce and verbalize hopes to reunite in the near future. You point to the hearing aid and say it’s a current development. We speak a little louder, just in case.

Then you turn to me and say something important — I know it is though I can’t recall it — your earnest, urgent voice.

“Jer — I’m so inspired by you who is our literary voice beyond the days of evening blossoms and early sunrises.”

You tell me to write what’s in my heart — sorrows and joys altogether — and you believe in me.

Grandfather of Hmong American literature, Pos Moua, please know that a voice is not raised alone.

It molds from you, ancestor. Your poetics are not lost — I hear them —

This voice honors you as you have honored me.

This piece was originally published in hais: a literary journal, spring 2021. The title “Blooming Lineage” arose from the title of Pos Moua’s 2019 collection “Karst Mountains Will Bloom: The Collected Poems of Pos Moua.” On Jer’s copy of the collection, Pos inscribed the words: “I’m so inspired by you who is our literary voice beyond the days of evening blossoms and early sunrises.”

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