They call her Mother;
worship waist-deep
in her thick brown body---
like soup my mother used to make---
cleanse themselves to praise her;
anchor soap-sculpted limbs
to adoration, fingers
steepled together in prayer.
Their faces remind me
of the way my father looked
in his coffin,
with the extraneous finally erased,
carved by his ancestors' bones.
Everything is brown and soothing,
like old movie film:
water, buildings, people, steps,
the smoke from the cremation fires---
twice, by mistake, I write 'creation'---
pagoda-shaped temples;
everything made of stone.
We light candles, cast jasmine
petal blessings, click camera shutters
to prove our presence.
Returning, our boat flies with the current,
invisible to the devout;
here, where they have weight
and we have none.

-Linda Lee Albert

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Meredith Jordan,