Leaving Traces

Goats clinging to cliffs,
children in white embroidered shirts—
running as one in the village.
Lattice-like lace
created with nimble, loving hands—
they sat around the kitchen table—
a cottage with no plumbing.
Headstones tilting and sinking in the field—
Cora grew up on this tiny island of Saba.
We hear the hum of memories,
raise our arms to the wind
and the rustling of all things past.
The labored breath of ancestors
lives in the things we carry—
heavy baskets of unknown burdens
and expectations, the color of dusty feet.
Woven into the threaded initials
of her blue handkerchief
is the place we knew of
only through small footsteps
and gulps of thick Malta—
Uncle Lyle’s sweet tobacco smoke
leaving traces of volcanic ash.