My Version Of "Ending Poem"

Ending Poem
by Ogechi Nwaogu and Nicholas Nwaogu

I am what I am.
A child of the Africans.
A fair-skinned Igbo of Aba.
A child of many cultures, born into this state as a family.
I am Nigerian.

I am a Queens New Yorker.
A free-born, community-bred, homegrown Oberete child,
up from my mother, a New York Nigerian Christian.
A product of Abia State.

I am not an immigrant,
but the daughter and granddaughter of many immigrants.
We didn’t know our ancestors names with a certainty.
They aren’t written anywhere.
First names only or enyi, nwa, ada.

I came from the fertile land where food grows.
My people partied when the work was done and enjoyed themselves to the fullest.
I am Nigerian indigene.
Igbo is in my flesh, ripples from my tongue, wiggles in my hips,
the language of papayas and pears.
Igbo. As Igbos come from Eastern Nigeria.
I am West African, rooted in the history of my continent.
I speak from that body. Just black and brown and full of drums inside.

I am African.
Africa waters the roots of my tree and I can return.

I am not American.
I am a root which has sprouted from what my ancestors have grown for me,
and my roots reach into the soil of two continents.
American is in me, but there is a way back.

I am not Australian, though I have dreamt of those cities.
Each voice is different.
Some soft, some slow, some loud and some low.
Australia lives in me but I have no home there.

Your table has a cloth made from my people.

Woven by one, dyed by another, and embroidered by another still.
I am a child of many mothers.
They have kept this culture we celebrate all going.

All the civilizations have been erected upon their backs.
All the joy that has come from their labor.

We are you.
We have lives that keep us going,
that have brought us to where we are.
Born at a crossroads.
Come and endure in the wealth of my peoples generosity. Eat, dear, eat.
History is said to have made us,
But will not eat ourselves up inside any longer.

Because we are whole.

And I am one.