Of the Threads that Connect the Stars

The poem explores change over time. Individuals can experience it suddenly. These potential lightning strikes of inspiration, transformation, and affirmation can be glimpsed in pieces throughout the text. A table slap signals belonging in a community of men. A night in a bedroom shut away from a riot becomes lodged in a child’s memory and reemerges in a poem years later. Stars seen through a telescope spark intellectual curiosity. All these moments gain new significance when they are woven together in a line from past to present. They are “threads that connect the stars,” and they exist on a generational scale.

Frank Espada was a migrant, so Martín Espada is a son of a migrant and Klemente Espada is a grandson of a migrant. Their diaspora story traces the family’s evolving relationship with America and their changing identities. The speaker’s father fights for himself and for others. His stars are “the white flash in his head when a fist burst / between his eyes” (Lines 2-3), and he is out on the street “talk[ing] truce” during a riot while his son is hidden in relative safety. Though the speaker “never saw stars” he joins his father’s efforts to make the world a better place.