by Catherine Gonick
When my father used the term for what we were
I didn’t know that cosmopolitan was code for Jew,
a proud but dirty word. I thought being rootless
was a good thing, that a cosmopolitan
was the being most at home in the world,
in cities and the wild, with people of every kind.
It was great to be an American, lucky to be born
into my nationality, but humanity—that word
was the most important one. I breathed in
this idea from my native air, the mild sun and
comforting fogs that daily swirled about
the newly established U.N. in San Francisco,
and all who lived loyally around the Bay, beings
from multiple races and nations, religions
and tongues. Even for those excluded
from the country club, the fraternity, good
neighborhoods and jobs, forced to stay
in ghettos, migrant fields, old cars,
beaten and imprisoned for wrong speaking,
that lovely air was equally available and free,
a promise and a sign. From Athens to Berkeley,
the flowers of democracy seem to have asked
for kind climates in order to grow strong.
Wanted: Cosmopolitan gardener able to plant
new words, root fair practices, clean air;
not afraid to get hands dirty.
Catherine Gonick has published poetry in journals including Live Encounters, Notre Dame Review, Forge, and Beltway Poetry Quarterly, and in anthologies including Support Ukraine, Grabbed, and the recently published Rumors, Secrets & Lies: Poems About Pregnancy, Abortion and Choice. She works in a company that slows the rate of global warming through projects that repair and restore the climate.
