Poet’s note: I wrote this poem during one of those times when I was pondering how much I belong” to the place where I was born and spent my early childhood. Over the years, I moved to other several countries and continents, all of which shaped me in various ways. But there’s something about the place that holds my earliest memories, especially sensory memories that still feel lodged in my body. Writing this poem helped me name my origins and also come to peace with my sense of perpetual exile.
The Exile Speaks of Mountains
by Rachel E. Hicks
In the Himalayan foothills during the monsoons
the electricity once stayed off for fifteen days.
Every morning there was chai with sugar cubes
and buffalo milk, delivered to our kitchen door
in tin carafes strapped with thick ropes to a mule.
We kept warm by feeding the stove log after log
and entertained by watching our spit sizzle
on its tin top. My brother held my hand on the trail
to and from school, scanning for leopard scat
or thieving langur monkeys in the trees.
I write this from my brick colonial in Baltimore,
decades removed, drinking black tea with cream and sugar—
the heat of exile churning in my blood.
I drive an SUV, shop at Target, and fight tears
at random moments, like when I open the door
of the Punjab store down on 33 rd , suddenly and viscerally
at home among the turmeric and cardamom, Neem soaps,
and steaming samosas under foil on the counter,
while the kind owner offers a mango juice box
to my daughter. Only if I embrace this life
as a perpetual pilgrim do I find solace in remembering
the terraced cemetery in the Himalayan pines
where the mute woman and her donkey guard the graves,
the distant beat of tabla drums, the bounce
of our flashlights on the trail walking home at night,
the thrill of leopards in the dark, the high peak
of Bandarpunch to the north, glowing in moonlight.
Used with permission from Wipf and Stock Publishers: www.wipfandstock.com.
Rachel E. Hicks is a second-generation TCK who raised third-generation TCKs. She was born in the foothills of the Himalayas and spent the bookends of her childhood in India, with moves to Pakistan, Jordan, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Hong Kong in between. Rachel’s debut book of poetry is Accumulated Lessons in Displacement (Wipf and Stock, 2025). Her poems, fiction, and essays have appeared in Presence, Ekstasis, The Baltimore Review, Front Porch Republic, Fare Forward, and other journals. A three-time Pushcart Prize nominee, she also won the 2019 Briar Cliff Review Fiction Prize. She is the assistant editor at Mars Hill Audio and the former editor of Among Worlds magazine. She now lives in Baltimore, Maryland. Find her online at rachelehicks.com.
