My Mother's Kitchen: Analysis.

My Mother's Kitchen by Choman Hardi

I will inherit my mother’s kitchen,
her glasses, some tall and lean others short and fat
her plates, an ugly collection from various sets,
cups bought in a rush on different occasions
rusty pots she doesn’t throw away.
“Don’t buy anything just yet”, she says,
“soon all of this will be yours”.

My mother is planning another escape
for the first time home is her destination,
the rebuilt house which she will furnish.
At 69 she is excited about starting from scratch.
It is her ninth time.

She never talks about her lost furniture
when she kept leaving her homes behind.
She never feels regret for things
only her vine in the front garden
which spread over the trellis on the porch.
She used to sing for the grapes to ripen,
sew cotton bags to protect them from the bees.
I will never inherit my mother’s trees.

The Poems Meaning/Message

         I feel as if everyone has those hand-me-downs or items that they receive from friends or relatives that are in reality useless, sometimes disgusting, but, they hold unquestionable value as a symbol or a reminder. That is what she will inherit.

This stanza the author uses to connect people to the experience of obtaining utensils, appliances, clothing, and so on from their parents and maybe even their parent's parents, that most are familiar with.  

        Her mother has had a undeniably unpredictable life, from the second paragraph the author helps the reader understand that she will finally, at the age of 69, settle down. An enduring immigrant. Again, like eight times before, she will refurnish, and start from scratch.  

       The mother does not care for such furniture, she only holds memories and talks of tranquility, and the small things surrounding her past lives that she had enjoyed and now misses. 

       My grandmother, like the mother in this poem, had never stayed put. Since she was 20 years old she has been on the move constantly. When I asked my Grandmother in my interview with her if she had taken with her to America any recipes she said, "Non. Escaping middle of the night, it was not on my mind." I knew the answer before I had even asked it, I knew she had dearly missed those recipes that she always talks about at family get-togethers. Those recipes no one will inherit. 

        I myself will inherit, along with many others in my family, piles of my grandmother's possessions. Every year in fact when we stay at her house for a little under a week before Christmas, she has us explore the house and make an extensive list of things that we will want from her house when she's gone. In a way it's like a compilation of our family's lives in Hungary, Rhode Island, New York, and New Jersey. Eventually, that compilation of our family's travels will be dispersed among the family, hopefully not any time soon.