—to my husband, recently diagnosed with rare and debilitating disease
Today I’m thinking about my legacy,
what I can hope for, what I might achieve.
I will never be a Beethoven, a Mozart, a Picasso
or a Keats, will never be crowned with an olive
wreath nor Ticktok my way to fame. I won’t be
in the annals of history or in the research journals
of science or in the exhibits of great Pharoahs
whose cartouche carvings and jewelry collections
blazon the family tombs of their mighty empires
like a jillion coral polyps underneath the surface
of the sea. But what I could achieve is a good name,
one chiseled in a single stone, a name suggesting
a rock or a gracious giver or one who has withstood
great heat. A name like Shadrack, a name like yours.
Published in my April 2024 collection, Come before Winter