She took my hands between her own
Herself of the mists and shadows,
I might never have noticed her
But the earnestness in those sea eyes,
They held mine–
I could not look away.
I will see you again, barely whispered within me–
And yes, I recognized her, Old and weathered,
A tree that has seen much,
Survived great things.
She was not a child, barely five feet tall.
Yes, I knew her—
Before I was born here again, I knew her.
The predawn finds me
Within the restless wakefulness of a night watcher
startled to have entered a vigil
I am unaware of ever keeping.
I compel myself to silence,
An endless stream of faces, lines etched in skin–
Because of how many losses do I exist?
The question’s afraid to be asked.
Awe and terror of it leaves me instinctively shrinking,
And I curl up under the covers, sobbing like a child against
The truth of things, it shatters into broken glass,
Shards of myself piercing through the hard outer shell
Piece by piece, I am wounded for it:
For gathering what lies broken and undone,
Deserves to come back whole.
This grief for what I never knew I lost:
How many memories will pull me out of sleep,
Drag me into themselves
As if I have become a prisoner of mirrors?
I took her hands in mine,
She is my great grandmother, my daughter,
And so I am haunted by what is.
Gone, all of them gone now,
But not from the marrow of my dreams
That ebb and flow, of places I’ve never seen,
Tides I’ve never known.
I’ll see you again, she said,
I uncoil my fragile body, exhausted with trembling,
Peal the blanket away from my eyes
And I am not alone.
Who are you?
Lingering where questions lie unanswered,
Breathing in silence, together.
The Sound of What Happens 