Cedar Chest Secrets
I wanted to meet time
so, I watched grandma crochet.
Life without a hook
is eternity without a loop.
The story of frutería and Levi’s factory
work, quiet, lurking, true,
pressed at the seams of
these exposed anís hands.
I wanted to learn secrets
like those folded in her cedar chest,
crinkled road maps persuading us
of where we are from.
Were we from 1907
crossing the Mexico border
from Nuevo León, or were we from 1892
crossing the Rio Grande from Coahuila?
Were we from where Ma Grande carried her
indigenous tongue, or were we a poem
not yet written except on DNA results,
ten percent middle eastern facts.
Were we from where God mended a broken wing
one too many times?
Or were we from the yellow, cotton
yarn she suddenly ran out of?
Cedar Chest Secrets explores faith in the unknown by drawing from what is already known of family and heritage. What do you know about your family from stories you've been given and how does that challenge your faith as a Christian woman? Are your curiosity and healing rooted in faith? All is reconciled in heaven, beyond this earth. God has given us what we need in this life to press on and it is a cedar chest of secrets until we meet our Creator.
