“How do you want to be remembered?” she asked,
knowing full well I wanted children:
a chance to stay,
like mangrove roots above the water.
“Who would you like to remember you?”
“Who?” I asked.
The word hung like a prayer
I didn’t know how to send.
Looking at the ground,
I combed the pebbles
sewn by heat and tar.
I never considered this, only to do something great.
Something that meant my feet mattered.
An etching in a river of sand.
But for who?
Everyone I supposed.
“Your children?” she asked.
“Well, of course.”
“And they’re children?”
“Naturally.”
“And they’re children?”
“One can hope.”
“Do you remember your great-grandparents?”
“Never met them.”
“Or anything about them? Some story—
some achievement that impacted your life?”
“Only one.
My great-grandfather jumped ship in New York,
fleeing the British Merchant Marine after a tour in the Congo.
He was fifteen or sixteen.”
“And?”
“He lived where he landed, raised a family,
and moved them from tenement house to tenement house
when he couldn’t pay rent—
which was often.”
“And?”
I looked at the ground again.
There were two cracks in the pavement I hadn’t noticed before
and in one, an ant, carrying a speck—
no home in sight.
“I guess I always liked that story
because it said something
about resilience.
About my people overcoming tough odds.”
“Perhaps it tells the story you want to tell yourself.”
I looked at her,
wondering how she could jump
to such a quick conclusion.
In the meadow beyond the creek,
the crickets buzzed with the rising sun.
A haze obfuscated the oaks and a single hawk,
searching for its next meal, emerged through the fog.
It looked strong.
Calm.
Not at all phased by the tedium
of performing this exercise again and again.
“Not the only story,” I said.
She smiled
and taking my hand in hers, said,
“That’s the right answer.”
— ❧ —
Poetry Corner
I was thinking about legacy and how our accomplishments, for the most part, will be forgotten over time. Even a thousand years from now, George Washington will likely be a footnote and perhaps forgotten altogether, depending on how the world changes. But what is truly remembered cannot be attributed to any one man, or any one name—it’s the spirit we share with the generations that follow, and the people around us. If you like poems like this, you can find more at In Verse.