Beneath MyBranches

 We passed.

Like fog passes through mountain gaps,

like dusk swallows silhouettes whole.

My kin wrapped their skin

in what whiteness they could gather—

soft enough to slip by,

sharp enough to cut ties.

Some were split like creekbeds in drought,

brothers swallowed by dust trails

headed north,

while cousins disappeared

into the hollers,

fading into the myths

told only in whispers

between elderberry bushes.

They survived

by holding their tongues

like river stones—

smooth, round, and deadly

if ever thrown too hard.

Their names shrank

to fit census rolls,

chins tilted up

to pass in daylight,

but their backs still carried

the drumbeat

and the ache of fire-smoked stories

retold by hands rather than lips.

I know this—

because their ache echoes in me.

Because I was born with it

coiled like copper vines around my spine.

One ancestor’s hands bled

from pulling roots in soil

that would not feed her.

Another lit Sabbath candles

in a windowless room,

knowing the flames

could betray her to neighbors

too proud of purity.

There was pride, yes—

but it weighed like ironwood,

splitting beams in silence.

The brown in me —

mud-rich and thunder-fed —

has always been louder

than the porcelain sheen

I was told to protect.

You see,

there is a people in my blood

who braided coal smoke

into their hair

and called the crows by name,

whose skin bore

the sun’s legacy,

and whose breath still smells of

moss, gunpowder, and cardamom.

They were the almost-forgotten,

the “not quite enough”

to be claimed,

but too much

to be ignored.

Still they walked,

barefoot on gravel,

under stars

they did not name aloud,

because even the sky

was taken from them.

And me?

I carry their silence

like marrow—

thick, aching,

not white,

not loud,

but true.

I am not always sure

if my strength is a whisper

or a war cry.

If I honor them

or betray them

with the way I write.

But I do know this:

When I walk,

the path bends

like riverbend memory,

guiding me not toward peace,

but toward understanding.

When I speak,

the leaves tremble—

not in fear,

but recognition.

And when I weep,

the wind does not ask

which side of me is grieving—

it just carries my tears

to the roots

that made me.

So call me the daughter of dusk,

of shadow crossing birch and redbud,

of songs unsung but never forgotten.

The one whose branches

grow from every buried bone,

and whose fruit

tastes like memory,

bittersweet,

but never broken.