Poets Salon: Finding Hope

POETS SALON

– 12/11/25

Hosted by Kathabela Wilson

first winter rain
after the wildfires
the seeds we planted

~ Kathabela

Ο Ο Ο

Teresa Mei Chuc

(Photo – Kathabela Wilson)

My Sadness is as Great as a Mountain

I was a two-year-old child lost in the seas of the aftermath of war; my family and I, Vietnamese boat refugees, who started a new life in Pasadena. Growing up in the City of Roses, I attended Marshall Fundamental Jr./Sr. High School and soon found my second home in the stones and stream that flowed through Eaton Canyon, where I learned to balance, jumping from rock to rock up the stream to the waterfall. In these mountains, I learned to fall and to get up again. Learned that sometimes climbing down was more difficult than climbing up, because gravity could make you slip. The oak trees and bay laurels wrapped their arms around my sadness and I felt loved. The deer taught me about the possibilities of life. The canyon gave me a silence that I could not find at home. The bird chirps offered me hope and joy, a counter to my father’s PTSD and rage after fighting in the Vietnam War and spending nine years in a Vietcong prison. My family and I lost our Vietnamese Motherland and so much more. In these mountains, I found my other home. When the fires burned in Altadena in the New Year of 2025, my mountain burned down. The trees, trails and streams that offered me friendship, that strengthened my body, mind and spirit, not only in childhood but throughout my life, were engulfed in flames, as was my heart. Black bears, squirrels, deer ran frantically. The wings of birds caught on fire, the fur of coyotes burned. Many friends lost their homes and many had to evacuate as the fire raced down the mountain. But I know, in time, the mountain will return again and so will we. Life, like pine cones opening to release seeds after a fire, will grow from the ashes. Indian paintbrush, mariposa lily, native chia, black sage, fire-followers.

my heart
the Santa Ana winds today
branches fall to the ground

Ο

Picking fruit (Photo – Kathabela Wilson)

Ice Raids

We drive around posting flyers on light poles in our city. This is where the day laborers hang out in the parking lot at Home Depot and we should put the flyers here in Spanish and English warning them about the ICE raids and who they could call to for rapid response and for immigration support. We post a flyer on the light pole where the man who usually stands at the corner of the cemetery with buckets of flowers, every day selling flowers. I have not seen him for over a month. I remember passing by the day after we had posted the flyers and the last time I saw him he was on his phone and looked worried. We post flyers on the poles where the street vendor usually sells their elote and snacks. I worry about the street vendors up the street who sell the yummiest tacos every night across from the gas station. When we saw the woman with her little cart of snacks going down our street, in front of our home, we talked to her and offered support so that she could stay home and be safe. Every time I see a Chevy or Ford truck or SUV with dark tinted windows drive by, I wonder if it’s ICE, if it’s the kidnappers taking away our families and neighbors. I watched on the news a young teen selling tamales on the street for his mother every day this summer. We donated groceries so that the street vendors could stay home. I listen to the ice cream truck going down the street, its jingle and worry about the ice cream man.

people terrorized
monarchs fly across borders
sunflowers bloom

O

Finding Hope: Notes and Credits

Teresa Mei Chuc was born in Sài Gòn, Việt Nam shortly after the Việt Nam War and grew up in Pasadena and Altadena, CA, on unceded Tongva Territory. Teresa is a public high school English teacher in Los Angeles in her twenty-first year of teaching.

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