Savory


 passage

crossing

 and back

 I was for you
 thousands of other voyagers
 I carried you
 to this beginning

you arrived
on the assumption
of that river of histories
 my blood

 turn
and an ancestor
Huguenot
ships oars in silence
 fleeing from France

 turn
and another
carver crossing
and back
 one town
 another
 children born
 as the work
 the wandering decides

child
not for centuries
have we buried our dead
in the same places

 and from your father
 as from me

 crossing

 and back
 India
 England
 and the temptation of open sea