— The Generations We Do Not See

Red stew,
red earth,
a hunger traded in a single afternoon —
and from that bowl
a nation: Edom.

*

The land could not hold
two brothers’ flocks.
So one turned toward Seir.

Not every parting is a wound.
Some wine needs a second cup
to keep from spilling.

*

Adah. Oholibamah. Basemath.
Eliphaz. Reuel. Jeush. Korah —

names fall like prayer beads
through the Beloved’s fingers,
each one a breath
someone once loved.

*

Edom had chiefs, then kings,
before Israel crowned anyone.
The promise was never one road.
It was rain over many hills.

*

I once saw Esau
only through Jacob’s fear.
Now I see a father,
a founder,
a mirror I turned away from too soon.

How many I have reduced
to one line in my story,
when God was writing them whole.

*

No ladder here.
No sea opened.
No angel at the river.

Only names,
and the long hush between them,
like a reed
remembering the marsh.

*

When my own name
slips into that silence,
let it be one bead on the cord,
one leaf on the old tree
drinking the same rain —

and still, Ah,
held in the remembering
of the One
who forgets no one.