The Tears I never Cried

©2017 Turtle Heart

i remember deaths

that I did not die

ancestors I never knew

and the names of

strangers 

I did not bury into the waiting earth

I remember mothers whose sons

I did not bleed or maim

and I remember prayers I never made

to gods I never named

in wars I never fought

all that I do not know

yet not knowing is not the same as unknown

or unmoved, so I remember all that

by dreams I never had

and the stories that men will tell

if the tears of heaven were to fall

would my faith swim or drown

sinking to the bottom

where those actual feelings lay screaming

in sacred silence

that silence no one has ever heard

or would I rise newly named

and blessed

and rise up to the sun once again

is it easy to remember what has never happened

in that life where the body never dwelled

and the bells never ringed

where water and wine

dripped from the rainbows

onto time’s old bones grown shiny in the dawn

where light begins to leave the shadows

and the shadows become children once again

remembering everything

trusting everyone

I am forever the one who never knew them

the one who has counted shadows

the one known only to the wind

the one who remembers…everything

Turtle Heart...©

Winter 2017