I hold a handful of pomegranate seeds— I think of you all I know and do not know--
A bushel of grapefruits arrive at the front door. The next day, a bushel of oranges followed by a bushel of pomegranates, like tribute foretelling the arrival of some dignitary or prince. Every summer, the bushels foreshadowed your visits-- The grapefruits and oranges for my mother, who loved all citrus, a luxury she didn’t have growing up in West Virginia. The pomegranates for me-- You knew I loved them. Why did the bushels and the visits stop after the summer I turned six?
These seeds I hold, ready to throw into today’s salad, are too few—
I remember you— showing me how to open a pomegranate; teaching me to count in Greek; moving a stepstool to the counter so I could climb and see how to make Greek yogurt from scratch, when you saw my nose wrinkle at the smell, telling me, “You will like it because you Greek,” your accent as thick and heavy as the clabbered milk in the yogurt glasses.
The last summer you came to visit— A train ride to Florida to stay the whole summer with you and Aunt Mae. I wanted the top bunk in the train car. You tucked me into the lower one saying, “You fall here. No hurt. You fall from up there, you hurt,” before hefting yourself into the top bunk. You said you’d teach me to swim. “Everybody in Greece swim. I teach you. You learn easy because—” you paused, waiting-- for my six-year-old excitement to finish, “I’m Greek!” You tousled my hair then loaded our things in the car.
Everything to be tried, to be learned, to be shown required our liturgical call and response: you would start, “You will like because—" and I would finish, “I’m Greek.”
Teaching me to swim didn’t work out too well— You told me to move my arms and legs fast, then threw me into the ocean. Each time I flailed and sank. Each time you pulled me up, “You okay. You learn.” The third or fourth throw, You pulled me up And said, “Enough today. But you learn because—” And despite my fearful sobbing, I finished, “I’m Greek,” as I wrapped my arms around your neck. We did not have time. I never learned.
Sirens, red lights, dark outside, Aunt Mae crying. The hospital cold, noisy. Mae on the phone. Mommy coming on the train.
You lived. Came home. Peeled me a pomegranate.
Mom and I left on the train. The last time I saw you, Uncle Pete, though you did not die until three months after my high school graduation, an obituary found on the internet tells me so. But the bushels, the visits, the phone calls stopped the summer I turned six. I never knew why. I will never know now.
Fifty-nine years after that summer with you, I stand holding a handful of pomegranate seeds, shining their ruby glow. Decades since last I split open a pomegranate. Too easy to buy in plastic tubs now. I need to finish this salad.
But I am stilled in the moment— The truth I now know— sleuthing through scraps of internet information after a DNA test-- What neither of us may have known that one summer, We were/ are father and daughter.
Your lies hang,
apricots swaying
in the summer air
from the tree
of your despair.
You pick the ripest apricots
to make jam
you ladle into small jars,
gifting them to friends
who smile softly,
touched you think of them
by gifting your small jars of jam
made from the apricots
you pick from the tree
of all your despair
denied.
What would I learn
Could I raise your bones
From the earth?
And like some ancient medicine woman
Scatter them like runes to read
Or use them in the making
Of a sacred instrument
To rattle next to my ear?
What would their music tell me?
Would their rhythms move me?
Would there be some wisdom spoken?
Hidden within the notes of rattled rhythms
Of all your dried out unearthed bones
Is there enough marrow left to have
All my ancestors speak to me?
Should I, in some ancient tribal ritual
Of ancestral cannibalism,
Ingest your ground bones
Mixed with magic into an elixir
Infused with your ancestral spirits,
Be given the power of thunder
And lightening that is your strength
Earned by you through the ages?
Is this how your spirits will travel through me
Teaching me of all the earth and sky?
Is there a way to know, to learn
To hear all the secrets you deem I need,
Need to know in this time, this place
For this, this last chapter
Of what I have left to me?
My ancestors, for I have wasted
Away pages and chapters,
Squandered decades of the anthology
You have written into me.
Ancestors, speak to me,
So I waste not the years
Left to be written
By your spirits into me.
In her grandchildren, her spirit is woven– What a tapestry These children create.
The strongest fibers of her determination run In the eldest, wearing her grandmother’s face, Though she never knew her.
Threads of her courage and strength Weave into the only one who knew her, Who can remember the smell of her beef stew, As the grown child wages a battle for her life.
Yarns of responsibility and fun spin In the lone grandson, As he raises his son And forgets not how to play.
The delicate fine threads of her caring and her dreams Spin through the twins, Born too late to know her, One doing what must be done to care for others. the other creating a business of her art.
The warm, soft yarn of her love and generosity weaves through the youngest, my daughter, Born under the same December sun, As she becomes a nurse caring For babies born too early.
In my mother’s grandchildren, A tapestry of faith is woven, And I am taught DNA is more than science, Woven with soul upon Some ancient loom. This tapestry of spirit Where my mother lives still.
Spun out from the centrifuge
Twisted in helix meaning
Strands entwined, twisted back
Stretching toward history within heritage
Search through the montage of time
Sift through pounds of truth and lies
For a few ounces of purity
Measured out within the mess
The now was the past
Where to walk
We travel back
On twisted helix roads
To the selves we were
So very long ago
And learn
The future braided
In the past
With the now
And made us whole
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Hearing The Mermaids Sing 