Homesickness

This poem is dotted with different references to the places in Trinidad that my dad traversed as a child. There are references to music (“calypso, parang”) that he loves from his childhood and still listens to today—especially in the car when he would pick me up from school. I can feel how much longing my dad has for the home he lived in for nearly all of his life up until his move to New York for college. I can tell how intimidated he is by the New York climate and how much he misses his home on the island.  

This poem describes my father’s thoughts as he stands on the bank of a river thinking about the home he has left, and how he feels that his future has sunk due to the fact that he has left his home. This poem is more ambiguous than the previous poem as it deals with a combination of homesickness and desolation. My dad feels that leaving his home is like following a river to emptiness, and he misses that future he thinks he would have had in his hometown.