The Citrus They Brought from Hong Kong (Kumquat (reprise))

Lyrics

[Intro]

[Verse 1]
Before this tree, there was a box.
A small tin box, cold to the touch.
The writing on it had faded, from a street in Hong Kong.
We brought it here in 2009.
The brothers of the eastern voyage, their faces I can still see.
They carried the seeds past the rough water.
On a boat with a single red prayer flag.

[Chorus]
They said, eat the whole thing.
The rind is the story.
The sweet, and the bitter, and the salt from the sea.
Each one is a small, orange sun that remembers the ocean.
A promise we planted, for you and for me.

[Verse 2]
We built its house from what the waves gave us.
Salvaged glass from a ship the sea broke.
Frames of driftwood, silver and smooth.
I turned the soil with a small iron trowel.
I did not know if anything would grow here.
This island is rock and wind and patience.
But the first leaf was a miracle.

[Chorus]
They said, eat the whole thing.
The rind is the story.
The sweet, and the bitter, and the salt from the sea.
Each one is a small, orange sun that remembers the ocean.
A promise we planted, for you and for me.

[Bridge]
The wind brings the salt through the cracks in the glass.
It settles on the leaves, it feeds the roots.
It makes the rind thick.
It gives the fruit a taste of the journey.
A memory of the long crossing.
This is the sea's blessing, they say.

[Outro]
Here.
Take one from the branch.
Eat it whole.
This is how we remember.