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In mid-day August,

The sun was shining, blazing down its heat.

The air's chill breeze came through, even if I didn't feel it.

The day felt almost perfect, "just like you", I thought.

As I stood in a black dress, wearing your watch and jewelry.

As I walked with the crowd,

on the broken down concrete, mid-day August,

Through el centro commericial,

I look to my right and I see you.

Your brown, soft skin, aged with hardships that came,

Your long, wavy, black hair, with streaks of gray,

that hold the prayers you cried out for us.

Your hands, the ones that stitched my favorite dress when I was nine,

Laid on top of the other, no longer shaking from the disease that took you.

My rock, my biggest support, gone.

My motivation, mi querida, gone.

As the world continued to spin, mines crumbled at the expense of a phone call.

I laid on my bed.

No reason to go back,

No reason to continue,

No reason to end the cycle.

But then I remember the lore you left behind,

Your stories of resilience became a part of who I am.

Your perseverance became my motivation.

As the day I dreaded the most came,

You pushed me with your strength.

Even as you were no longer here,

I felt the prayers you said to God.

For me to have the force to continue life without you.

Day by day, as life continues,

I feel the comfort of your love surrounding me.

The love you never failed to make me feel,

Even if we were 1,593 miles apart.

Even as I struggle to continue,

Every characteristic of you is in me now.

From your smile, to the way you love,

From your resilience, to your perseverance,

To the color of my skin, our brown skin.

I am turning into what you wanted me to be,

You became part of me, Mid-Day August.

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Opoku, Isaac. “Spirit of Resilience Painting by Isaac Opoku Badu.” Www.google.com, 2024, share.google/images/8jSkGSjBCJ0rLe0lw. Accessed 22 Oct. 2025.

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I chose this artwork because to me, it represents how struggles can push you down, but you will come back. This relates to my poem because during my grandmother's death, I fell into a puddle of depression, and felt like my life had no meaning without her in it. But, as I laid in this cycle, I remembered that her love is eternal. I remembered that her story is what pushes me to be better and make her proud. In the art work, the basket represents the sadness and depression that was weighing down on me.

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This is mi abuela Maria. She was born on March 28th, 1942. To people, she was known as the sweet lady living in the corner of 6A Avenda, Calle 76. But to me, she was my everything. My biggest support, my inspiration, my motivatior, everything. She passed on August 11th, 2025. She was 83 when she passed due to Parkinson's disease.

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The meaning of my poem "Mid Day August", is to highlight my recent grandma's passing, and how it transformed me. As the poet, I wanted to highlight a sense of sadness and shift to resilience. In the poem, I repeated certain words such as "Mid- Day August", to represent the day of my grandma's funeral. "Mid-Day August" was a typical day to other people, but to my family and I, it felt sadder than ever. As the poet, I also repeated the word "day". I repeated this word to show that my family were taking this time one day at a time, appreciating time with our families and grieving the loss of one of the most important members. I also used imagery in the poem to highlight my grandma's physical appearance and some of the key aspects in her life. "Your long, wavy, black hair with streaks of gray... hold prayers you cried out for us" represents decades of prayers of protection of us, pleads and prayers of miracle for us. "Your hands.. no longer shaking from the disease that took you" describes how hard working my grandma was throughout her life, until Parkinson's disease took her. "To the color of my skin, our brown skin" represents our heritage and beauty from Guatemala. I also used alliteration in the lines "No reason to go back... No reason to end the cycle". I used alliteration because I wanted to portray the sense of sadness and giving up after her passing, feeling like there's no longer a reason to continue life with the purpose of making her proud.