TRANSCENDENCE: VIRTUAL GALLERY
Visual Art
Poetry
“The Lineage Prayer”
By, Jessica Morgan
All the women’s hands in my family eventually look like gnarled oak trees.
My grandma used to lick her dried, cracked, fingers before pulling my tights up over my knees.
Those hands were Love.
I couldn’t wait to have those hands.
The same hands that taught me,
How to plant impatiences in the garden.
Little creature,
Squatted in the dirt,
Head cocked to the side,
Monkey see. Monkey do.
First she would plant one
And then so would I.
Digging in the dirt is like going back in time.
To when we were hominoids
And present moment survival was the only thing that kept us busy.
Inquisitive-eyed cousins
Of the humans we were going to be.
Nobody thinking they will be
the split-
In the family tree.
Mostly we think we are shiny new additions,
Like budding green leaves.
Digging up dirt is like going back in time.
To when we were all connected and didn’t know
-Or care-
What parts of you were part of me
Or, see ourselves as separate from the branches in the canopy.
I was never one to believe in intelligent design.
Evolution is a messy accident.
The force of which whips and bends our trunks.
Knotting and fissuring the genealogical spine.
But, there is a genesis after the storm.
So I ask....
Now, I belong where and in what part of this new arboretum?
And furthermore what’s my role in this tender ecosystem?
Maybe you thought this was a poem
Buts it’s a prayer.
A simultaneous request for help and expression of gratitude.
Though, my mom never taught me to fold my hands and bow my head,
She did teach me that god is love
And love is light
And if you sew it’s seed down in the deepest, darkest layer
And nurture it with patience, just right-
Tend to the soil with kindness,
And allow its roots to take hold,
You too can revel in the fruits of humanity.
And that is why my hands
Are beginning to look like a gnarled oak tree.
By, Jessica Morgan
All the women’s hands in my family eventually look like gnarled oak trees.
My grandma used to lick her dried, cracked, fingers before pulling my tights up over my knees.
Those hands were Love.
I couldn’t wait to have those hands.
The same hands that taught me,
How to plant impatiences in the garden.
Little creature,
Squatted in the dirt,
Head cocked to the side,
Monkey see. Monkey do.
First she would plant one
And then so would I.
Digging in the dirt is like going back in time.
To when we were hominoids
And present moment survival was the only thing that kept us busy.
Inquisitive-eyed cousins
Of the humans we were going to be.
Nobody thinking they will be
the split-
In the family tree.
Mostly we think we are shiny new additions,
Like budding green leaves.
Digging up dirt is like going back in time.
To when we were all connected and didn’t know
-Or care-
What parts of you were part of me
Or, see ourselves as separate from the branches in the canopy.
I was never one to believe in intelligent design.
Evolution is a messy accident.
The force of which whips and bends our trunks.
Knotting and fissuring the genealogical spine.
But, there is a genesis after the storm.
So I ask....
Now, I belong where and in what part of this new arboretum?
And furthermore what’s my role in this tender ecosystem?
Maybe you thought this was a poem
Buts it’s a prayer.
A simultaneous request for help and expression of gratitude.
Though, my mom never taught me to fold my hands and bow my head,
She did teach me that god is love
And love is light
And if you sew it’s seed down in the deepest, darkest layer
And nurture it with patience, just right-
Tend to the soil with kindness,
And allow its roots to take hold,
You too can revel in the fruits of humanity.
And that is why my hands
Are beginning to look like a gnarled oak tree.
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