“Rosary for Ruth Asawa” by Trinh Lê

Rosary for Ruth Asawa

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dear plant mother
most prolific
most bitter
earth
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i
cradle
one white
peppercorn
before sleep
so the dream
takes root
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a
bl
oom
inverted k
eeps its col
or ferment
ed violet
fading
like a
brui
se
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:
:
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in a
garden
the tumul
t of history
dims so gr
ass migh
t grow
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pro
cee
d sp
ectra
l ref
ere
nc
e
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to the
placeless
center the
boundary
garden
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Trinh Lê

Trinh (aka Anastasia) Lê is a poet and book artist of Vietnamese origin. Their work has been supported by the San Francisco Public Library, the Asian Art Museum, and the UC Berkeley Arts Research Center. Their writing appears in Broken Promises: Artists in Solidarity Through the Lens of James Baldwin, The Blood in Our Veins, The Roots to Our Trees: A Southeast Asian Anthology, and The Ana. Trinh self-publishes under the name B!NGO Press.

Headshot: Quiet Lightning

Photo Credit: Staff