My name is Podrikotumma and last year I was living away from Ireland for most of the time.

And often enough I would find myself with my eyes closed, remembering a particular walk that I love to take.

A walk where there is the smell of turf and peat, a walk where you can barely hear anything other than a stream and maybe a small bird.

And I would go there in my mind even when I was in the middle of a city.

And there was something about carrying that piece of home with me in my memory that helped me feel from a place even though I wasn't there anymore.

Mice Races by Andres N. Ordrika

We are in the desert, lips cracked, mouth dried like freshly milled maize, the ground size as if inconvenienced by each of our steps over its thirsty ochre.

There are tall green no palace lined and neat rolls,

reminding me how even here abundance is possible. Grandfather asks me my thoughts of the land, so I ask him if this is where we come from.

See me, oh, half of you is from this desert.

I lick my lips, parched like the earth, take my boots off, then my dirty socks, stomp my feet to the beat of the harabet tapatillo, digging deeper into the soil with each kick.

What are you doing?

Ask my grandfather, I want to be a no pal papa, I want to grow. So he leaves me, then returns with a shovel carefully plants me into this weathered landscape.

Afterwards, he kisses me goodbye with such strength.

Before patting my soft head and in his touch I know I will be fine here, all will be fine. The desert is mine, if I want it.

Here I learn how to grow and so my grandfather begins the return journey alone. The ground calls after him but I stay quiet because I know I will be fine here. All will be fine.

I am the true vine and the desert is my gardener. It's mine to inherit because I am of both land and root.

So this poem takes place in the desert and I always feel too that this poem takes place in a dream.

This is a poem about something that is deep and shared in family. The clue is in the title, these reises, my roots.

Here we have the poet and rice and ordrika and his grandfather, papa, as he calls him in conversation in the poem.

And there is this question about where am I from? Is this who I am? What does it mean to be from here? Am I here alone? Will you always be here? If you're not, will I lose it?

All of these questions of identity, locativeness and a deep spiritual connection to land that has been in your family are present in this extraordinary poem.

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