“Clouds Clouds Clouds! #2” © Bonnie Matthews Brock
A Final Request
I don’t want my body buried in the land of the free and home of the brave
I demand to rest in the soil of my ancestors
I want my body cold and shipped across the sea
I want my coffin to be carried on shoulders from my front yard to the grave
I want the men in my life,
By that time it will be my sons and grandsons
To gently place me 6 feet deep
I want the imam from my mosque to pray over me
I want the mother tongue to be the only language spoken at my funeral
Bury my body in Bosnia
Amila Babic: I’m a first generation child of immigrant parents in America. In my free time I like to do tarot card readings, watch Turkish soap operas, drink coffee, and go on multiple yearly trips back to my parents homeland country, which is Bosnia.
Bonnie Matthews Brock is a Florida-based photographer, as well a school psychologist. She loves hiking the urban and woodland trails of “anywhere” (and pausing often to shoot photos) with her very patient husband (and often collaborator), Ted. Her images have been featured on the covers of magazines such as Ibbetson Street, Wild Roof Journal, Poesy Magazine, Humana Obscura, and Arkansas Review; as well as on the pages of publications such as Oddball Magazine, Ember Chasm Review, Beyond Words Literary Magazine, Beaver Magazine, and Lateral. Her works are archived at institutions such as Poets House NYC, Brown University, and Harvard University.
and how she touches our hearts, of distant path for many of us. Our souls sometimes in lands that have ceased to be. We have been absorbed my this
land, by immigrant grands and parents who wanted to start anew in a home promised to all. Babic’s song sings to the heart of all we have been and be . . .