I come from ...

at a professional development in Arizona the Hawaiian facilitators asked the same question

their assessment session in full swing begun with a circle.

I was late, pushed into the circle.

And Boom. My turn.

"Where do you come from?... What ancestors do you bring to this circle?... What are your waters?..."

I said, "I bring into this circle my father: Alberto Alcibiades Elizalde."

My waters? I'd never thought of this.

Seems Hawaiian children, when they are doing tribal work, before they carve their canoes, always ask each other: "Where are your waters?"

Bet my pop never had to answer this question, though when he arrived he threatened to swim back.

I think...

San Francisco Bay, Pacific Ocean, all the way down south to where the salt from the Bay mingles with the salt from the Rio Guayas, more than a thousand miles south.

I come from or rather my waters are the Bay, the Pacific and Rio Guayas.

a connection with my Papi I never saw.

I come from my brother Willie asking me to write more

I come from dinner with family, wait until everyone is served until you start, quiet until its time to speak.

I come from that blue collar San Francisco that every now and then I still catch a glimpse of, catching that glimpse right here in this Poetry for the People class.