Like Esther, like me

 I was not raised behind marbled gates, but I have stood at the edge of thresholds I was not meant to cross - 

               and still I did.

Not with a forceful intention but with a quietness of something beyond fear and comprehension. 

Like Esther, I am a name that changed me, not fully my own. A name that was made to fit the walls I walked but not the heritage buried within.

Beneath all who I am, a name sung by my foremothers. It lives crackling like an awaiting volcano and wild like the stormy wind. It is spilled in languages that still have a vibrating echo within thr very marrow of my untold silence.

They told me I must choose. That when I serve Jehovah I must prune the strong branches of which I was raised from, down to nubs. I must trim the songs, the customs and all that was taught to my spirit from those who came before me.

But I still cradle them within me, carried so delicately, not in defiance but that of which is a sacred whisper. A reverence deeply woven, stitched into every ribbon skirt, every prayer I have given and every page I write beneath a tapestry blanket of stars.

I walk like Esther.

     Not fully seen - 

          But present.

A woman of two rivers. One heritage, one covenant.One tied to the earth and the other towards the heavenly stars. I have learned not to drown by the tides but to intertwine with care. 

Jehovah has never asked me to forget but to walk with discernment from here to the future. With the oil in my lamp and ashes I carry I am reminded that my survival is not conflicted but a journey.

So I stand on the edges but not erased and forgotten nor am I fully understood.  

          I am held here.

And when my alloted time creases and it always will be defined, I will not speak in a fire but in a remembrance. In obedience. 

In this voice Jehovah gave me, the one that still carries through the wind of where I began.