As a distant planet is destroyed by old age,
a scientist places his infant son
on a spaceship to Earth.
That ship was named M I G R A T I O N.
Far from his homeworld Krypton,
as the infant prince of a long-gone planet,
the baby trembled in the dead weight
of space; a thousand years pass
in an instant; time carries
in the distance. The boy
sleeps away the years
out of where he might
have emerged a man. He sleeps
dreaming of a foreign homeland,
but forgets the details
once he lands.
***
Somewhere below, a farmer
lays his son to rest
on family grounds.
The alpine of his cross
tilts east towards the Sun.
The farmer plants his feet
to soak in the view:
a crooked cross
stilted soil beneath
a yellow patch of vine griping
at a wooden throat on top, a marigold
collapses into itself.
The farmer lowers himself,
cradles the flower
in calloused hands,
then whispers,
Sana sana colita de rana,
Si no sana hoy, sanará mañana.
Then weeps
.
.
.
Just then—!
a ship, now named I N H E R I T A N C E,
crashes into the earth before him.
Out of the disturbed grounds rises a boy
with a face like the Sun. His nubby
fingers grip the earth, imploring the farmer
to name the boy My Son.
***
Under careful instruction,
the boy learns the culture of Earth.
Each morning,
he listens for frequencies
sounding out of the Earth’s crust,
lost to the rest of Earth—
the quiet hum of bubbling creeks
into wells beneath our feet,
sand and debris clicking against
cavern walls leaving a print
like a painting—
But he cannot decipher words
from the broken babbles.
Unable to differentiate river from creek,
rock from space, people from Earth,
the boy learns to sing
in the only tongue he knows
Sana sana colita de rana,
Si no sana hoy, sanará mañana.
(Heal, heal little frog’s tail,
If it doesn’t heal today, it will heal tomorrow)
***
At night, alone in his room,
the boy opens the window
for the wind to enter
Weso weso it greets
tucking him into bed.
In its cold breath
are the echoes
of a people, the history
of a past stretching forward
into a future with the wind.
It recites the tales of a people,
then ends
Ma Xipahtinemi (be well,
Mōztlayoc until next time)
As he dreams,
the boy fabricates a lineage
to inherit: T H E L A S T P R I N C E
of a long lost planet Born for
greatness, he holds as much potential
as the yellow Sun.
***
As the last prince of a dead planet,
he sculpts himself into
the ideal man, A S U P E R M A N.
However most days,
the man daylights as an ordinary
American, seeking small proof
of everyday justice.
He stays awake at night wondering;
as both the epitome of human potential
and intrinsically foreign to Earth’s ways;
motivated by a sense of justice inherited
from a— once— distant planet,
now destroyed by old age…
