Remember

poem - 2022
dedicated to my ancestors, the Earth, the future generation
special thanks to Cynthia Renta

There you are

in your work uniform

on the sales floor

or in the classroom

or in the office,

punching away at the time,

sneaking glances at Instagram every now and then,

scrolling through memes or someone else’s weekend,

when you look up

and see your great-grandfather

in a wicker coffin

in the middle of the room.

His face -

which is your grandmother’s face,

which is your own face -

is just enough

to peel your gaze from your screen.

In a few minutes,

this coffin has sprouted through the floor

the way, over decades, mugwort and vine

will reclaim long-since abandoned buildings,

and now,

in the midst of work desks or chromebooks

or prepackaged, price-tagged products,

it becomes clear that in this space,

it is your dead great-grandfather

who is most alive,

even more than you. 

Until you remember.

Not any particular string of events,

but instead impressions of what you once felt

and what once made you feel:

you, as a child,

mad dashing away

from the ocean foam chasing you on the shore,

your mother laughing as she bites into an orange;

you, as a teenager,

below your first full moon and starry sky outside the city,

watching your grandfather

cast and rearrange firewood like tarot cards

in a makeshift pit, the scent

of pine and smoke and sweat filling the silence;

you, a young adult,

helping your grandmother pick the bell peppers

that she somehow managed to summon

from the small patch of once dead dirt

between her apartment and her neighbor’s

where you played as a toddler.

Everything worth remembering is a smell or a touch:

the salt and seaweed carried in by breeze,

the moonlight and campfire caressing your forehead,

the leaves and damp soil fresh on your grandmother’s hands.

As the memories fade,

you begin to feel the weight of absence,

not of your grandparents or great-grandfather,

but of sensation itself.

How long has it been since you smelled?

Since you last felt?

Before you begin to count the years,

you start to hear singing.

As the sound grows, elderly men and women

rise like morning mist from beneath the linoleum floor.

Each being is clothed in their own gift from Earth:

deer skin, palm leaves, knit wool, silk,

seashells, beads of all colors and sizes, 

and feathers that sway slow as they move. 

Each being is of every size, shade of skin, and texture of hair.

All are barefoot.

Forming a circle around your great-grandfather’s coffin,

they begin to clap as they sing,

and though you cannot decipher their words,

your body understands their song:

like when you watched a mother sparrow

feed a worm to her baby on a condominium construction site;

like when your father kissed your forehead

before you took your bags and moved out of his house;

like when your grandmother pocketed a fistful of soil

before boarding the plane to a new homeland;

like when your ancestors first looked into the eyes

of the children who denied their heritage and left their people;

like when Mother Earth first felt her children stomp their feet

not in a dance of prayer but in defiant conquest. 

Your coworkers leave their private corners

to watch the ceremony beside you.

Dumbstruck, you all unclasp and drop your smartphones,

which burst into tiny clouds of dust as they each hit the ground. 

Nothing else exists but this moment.

As the beings clap and sing for your dead great-grandfather, 

you and your coworkers all begin to cry a visceral wail.

You know what it is to mourn.

But whom are you mourning?

You watch your dead great-grandfathers’ folded hands

begin to tap their fingers to the rhythm,

then his feet begin to shake,

and soon, he opens his eyes.

The song holds him 

as he places his hands on the sides of the coffin

and lifts himself to a seat.

With tender touch, the beings help him climb out

and stand up straight.

Your great-grandfather is fully naked:

his weathered but sturdy body, a Basin Pine Tree;

the wrinkles on his face and hands,

a geography of forgotten rivers and valleys;

twigs and pine needles sprout from his arms and legs.

Once he is upright,

the song stops,

and he and the other beings

turn their eyes

towards your coworkers and you.

Your great-grandfather approaches you slowly,

rising ferns and fungi trailing his footsteps.

The smell of forest rain surrounds you completely.

He is face-to-face with you.

He reaches out towards you

and brings your hands up to your face,

and finally, you see clearly.

They are not hands; they are branches,

graying, brittle, and bare of almost all bark. 

You turn towards your coworkers,

and see them all as withered and splintered trees,

struggling to reroot themselves in the linoleum.

The beings begin to sing again,

this time looking at your coworkers and you,

your great-grandfather, letting go of your hands

to clap along. 

Deep within you,

you know this is not magic.

It is clarity.
It is recognition.

It is lost memory found again

which answers almost all questions.

You remember who you are.

You remember how you got here.

You remember how it came to be like this.

One question remains:

is their song a mourning song

or a medicine song?

Your great-grandfather smiles as he sings,

and through the reflection of his eyes,

you watch a single, tiny leaf

unfurl from your chest

where your heart

still

beats.