Your Story Sings Through Me

Your memories
and my memories of you
run deep,
like the rippled reflections of orange-red
in a koi pond,
the inviting mystery,
the plunging depth of color.

I thought you took your stories with you
when departing this world,
but then reels of film kept appearing,
a night-time movie in my dreams,
a daily ritual of time travel,
when days and years flooded brain cells,
an excavation of family history,
like the paintings of your Uncle Jules
that I had never seen,
but somehow knew in my veins,
the texture of oils on canvas.

I am the hoop dancer at the water’s edge,
a flash of spinning red.
I am yesterday, today, and tomorrow.
I am the imprint of your life well-lived,
now singing through my DNA,
the spark of life in your grandsons.
Even blinded by the cloth of earthly existence,
I still see you.
I can see for centuries.