Dates bracketed by dashes
          for future centuries,

as if they could encapsulate
 a person’s stories.

Could the dash share her teachings?

Decades of students,
 colourful thank-you notes
         plastered to our fridge.

What about the cancer?

The tiring pain,
        the mood swings.

What about her simple joys?

Daily home living.
        God and nature.

Poems in journals,
 unpublished,

        the same cadence as mine.

I sift.
        I sift.

I never hear her
 say my name anymore.

She’s gone back
          to the shore in the sky.

I changed my name
 to forget that longing,

       that tidal pull home.

Marriki.

       (Aalia.)

I pen to page.

         I thank you.