Claudia Ramírez Flores
The Summer I Grew Wings
Handpicked con guantes de mi ama
Shielded con sus paños de colores
Until I was able to fly on my own
Hermosas manos espinas, rasguñadas, cansadas
Wings carved con las manos de las campesinas en los campos de Watsonville
My wings have thorns
Thorns de las matas de mora
Thorns del filo de la vida
Red
Delicate como la de Japón
Hermosas como la aurora,
Que me acompaña al empezar mi mañana
A fusion of colors como un acordeón
Harvested with grit, sweat y amor
Amor shaped like a taco de frijoles con chile guajillo
Smoky sweet sazón servido con un “te tocan los trastes”
O una sopita de conchita que calienta el alma y abraza al corazón
༓༓༓
Los files de Watsonville stretch across mountains, counties, countries and dreams
Los files de Watsonville harvest more than strawberries, moras, lechuga, manzanas, celery, cilantro
They harvest loyalty, community, resiliency, ganas
The heat waves molded my wings
They gave them sharp bulletproof edges
Made them waterproof like the bags I wore in the rainy mornings
Mis alas tienen ganas
My wings are dandelions
My wings smell like berries and petrichor
Ese lindo olor a tierra mojada después de días de calor
Los surcos no perdonan
el sueño, el cansancio, las lluvias, los incendios,
pandemias, días festivos, problemas familiares, enfermedades
o el hielo
Te devoran estaca por estaca
Bote por bote
Sting like bumblebees
Freeze dreams
༓༓༓
In the summer of ICE, my saddened wings froze.
frightened
By icy roads and concentration camps
Frozen inside of a cocoon
Slippery roads make our souls slide slowly down in darkness
Las acerque al fogón and I let the fear melt away con mezquite y tunas
And the fire in my veins
Morning glories mistaken for tumbleweeds
Dandelions roots
Buried en la tierra that my gente harvest
Guamares
Children of the wind
Sprinkling moon dust
༓༓༓
Los campos de Watsonville harvest
doctores, doctoras, abogados, abogadas, maestros, maestras,
emprendedoras, ingenieros, ingenieras, poetas
Gente con corazón de oro, plata y obsidian
Erupting kindness and humility
Ojos de lucha
Rising morning glories
A costa de los huesos de los padres y las madres
Los abuelitos que pizcan en su vejez
Broken feet, hands, backs and hearts
Oh sweet poisonous berries, you devour our health and energy
Give our children a chance to succeed
Generational dreams realized through the eyes of the kids
With that diploma, that first check, that new home
faith
courage
vision
A chance to grow wings
To spread them high
To fly and catch that
handpicked dream that cost their lives
Reflection Questions:
What do "wings" represent in this poem?
How often do you read or listen to multilingual writing?
How do the experiences in this piece connect to California's history or your own life?
Claudia Ramírez Flores is a Mexican American poet shaped by the shifting landscapes of migration. Her work holds the ache of absence alongside the tenderness of remembrance. A UC Berkeley and Yale Writers’ Workshop alumna, and a contributing writer for Journal X, she braids Spanish and English to honor voices lost to silence, violence, and confinement. On the page and in the room, her poetry becomes a bridge, spanning liminal zones, carrying the past into the present, the self toward community, and grief toward the possibility of healing.