keep

is the picture scratched

or is that sunscreen on your forehead

squinting at the camera

prescription glasses safe on shore

is that sunscreen on your forehead

while you hold your floating daughters

i am looking at my sister

she is looking at her feet

while you hold your floating daughters

the sea remembers you into it

she is looking at her feet

sun hat sensitive skin

the sea remembers you into it

just another shade of blue

sensitive skin for sensing sun

and somehow keeping it

just another shade of blue

squinting right at mama’s camera

i have to keep the light the sound

the picture scratches me

What can we keep? What is the work of keeping? I am up early this morning with archive questions. I am so grateful to have this archive of pictures to engage. But the work of keeping, holding close, my memories, my father, my mother’s portrait practice feels like it lives not in these image but somewhere between my hands and my heart. The work of keeping is mostly in my desire, my reach, not for the image but for the closeness, for the energy, for what that moment, but more importantly the loved ones indexed in it are still teaching me. And the edges of the picture and the finitude of our embodiment, the fact that sun could burn us, that salt wears us away, that this is all that there is left to touch and neither my touching hands nor this well kept photo album will live forever…all of that is painful. But that feeling of longing and reaching, of loving and becoming, I wonder if even this whole universe is but an index for that uncontainable energy. Ever referenced, never fully held. I miss my Dad. There is some good news I would love to celebrate with him. There is some hard news I know he would empathize with. Today. Every day. Welcome loved ones, to another day of holding close, of longing and reaching. Of disintegrating into all this desire to have and hold and touch and preserve the unpreservable. Of the love that’s there behind all of it. Oceans of it. Skies full.

P.S. My every day writing practice shapes my days into vessels for generations of love. If you want support with your own daily creative practice, I’d love to be part of your journey. This is the Stardust and Salt Daily Creative Practice Intensive.