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2003 Urumqi China

Series of two

watercolor on d'arches rag 22 x 30


Half of my body

From my father,

Half of my cells,

Half of my DNA

Therefore half of my atoms,

Came from Coal Creek,

Coal Creek, Tennessee.

I had to go back there,

Into the mountains,

Where he had been born,

And gaze at the creek

Running down from the mountains,

down from the mines,

Where my grandfather

And great grandfather

Had worked,

Gazing at the white houses along the creek

I wondered which had been our family’s.

I am a daughter of Coal Creek,

But they will not recognize me.

So different now,

I have lived in Africa and China,

And I am half of my New York mother….

But Coal Creek calls to me.

I brought a tooth,

Pulled from my head, only weeks before.

It was all I had to offer in return.

My DNA and the atoms buried within,

The white tooth broken into pieces.

Standing on the bridge, I threw it into the creek.

No fanfare,

No ceremony.

Just a cloud covered sky,

On a hot Tennessee morning.

You could not see the collision.

But it happened,

My atoms of the present

Smashed and mixed,

With my father’s atoms from the past.

There was no greater way

I could honor Coal Creek,

Than to give back some atomic particles,

Becoming one.

Jalaliyyih Quinn