"How to be a Good Ancestor" by Sophia Rosenberg

be still listen slip through the needle eye of silence. leave behind your preference for black licorice, your talent for word games your grandfather’s watch….your hair, your skin, your teeth enter naked as bones ask the furred, the feathered, the finned how to ford the river, how to scale the rock cliff how to spin your flax to gold feel the floor beneath your absence, the wide planks of the old house that were once proud firs breathing out cool fog, touch the skies those trees held up stand before gods that are strangers whose language is harsh in your ears and do not flinch trust kindness when you find it- the flesh surrounding the apple’s seed the apple carried in the beak of a raven become the raven’s fingered wings flying through time sifting wounds and wonders become your one unbearable wound cry tears that freeze in six-pointed geometry then fall and fall until they smooth mountains be the unmistakable snowflake that launches the avalanche and buries the village become the thaw uncover a memory of wholeness drip that sweet clean water on the growing vine of generations the vine that will someday flower with the twin stars of a baby’s open hands a baby who will cry out to you from a dense and troubled darkness and you will answer: heal child, the way is in your blood. ————————————– Sophia Rosenberg called us from Lasqueti Island, BC, Canada. voicemailpoems.org/submit/ facebook.com/voicemailpoems x.com/voicemailpoems bsky.app/profile/voicemailpoems.bsky.social instagram.com/voicemailpoems