This past weekend I had my first training session to become a facilitator in Pace e Bene Nonviolence Service’s Engage Program. The weekend was a fascinating and wonderful view into the other participants as well as myself.

I was able to interact with others and see how my own views regarding nonviolence interacted and contradicted their own. There were people of all ages and faiths and demographics. One of the exercises we did regarding who we were demographically was an exercise called “I Am From Exercise.” We were instructed to write a poem in which the first part we began with “I am from…” and then were given a certain topic.

As both a poet, and a lover of poetry, I found this to be a very exciting, rewarding, and insightful exercise with deference to myself and the others. I decided to share what I came up with for myself. I hope you enjoy:

-I Am From-

I am from Pennsylvania Dutch Country where

even the non-Mennonite kids “run up the laundry,”

use words like doplic, and enjoy faschnaughts…

on Fat Tuesday.

Where manure means spring and hung tobacco means fall.

I am from head coverings and cape dresses

and men and women on different sides of church pews

even if they’ve been married longer than I’ve been alive.

Here we sing harmony, always in four parts

and boys are pleased to grow to men who sing tenor.

I am from chapatis, ugali, and mchuzi;

mandazis with chai, but also shoo fly pie.

I find dissonance in the harmony that is

my being, confused with contradictions

and the fusions of a culture saturated life.

I am from yearly gatherings to can

200 plus ears of corn. Strawberry picking

with grandma while grandpa listens to a sermon

on the TV with his teeth in the jar.

And the most violent I’ve seen either of them

is when grandma says not to complain

as the blood drips out my finger

from a quilting needle prick.