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When I was in college I received a letter from my mother asking me to please use punctuation in my letters to her, and ending with the ancient Greek aphorism, Know Thyself. I wrote this poem for her a number of years after she “crossed over.”
Standing on the cutting edge the soles of my feet shred with every step.
You whisper into my ear from down the river, from the other side,
where I remember places I have never been, crossings I have never crossed,
in a language you spoke as a child.
You say, choose between the pain of knowing and the pain of not knowing.
When I was young you taught me how to find my way home.
From that day on, never have I been lost in the desire to be rescued.
Only my body remembers the yearning for contact,
that which remains unknown.