heritage | Myths of the Mirror

image by Sue Vincent

Inspired by Sue Vincent’s #writephoto prompt.
And by my DNA results from Ancestry.com

Ancestral Portals

Infinite portals illuminate the hollows
of forgotten origins, lost migrations
my fingers sift through foreign sands
seek the spirals of phantom generations
I wander the helices’ halls of time
and stir ancestral dust

I am of the taiga’s endless twilights
ribbons of color on midnight snow
a land of trolls and crescent cliffs
of the highlands’ merlin and castle ruins
from heathered moors to seaside charm
legends of stone and spring, an Avalon king
I journeyed with giants through emerald hills
by sacred rowans and fairy wells
where Eirinn’s magic veil lay thin

I am of wooden shoes and stepped roofs
creaks of windmills over tulip fields
a place of dikes and storms restrained
of Aegean’s islands and sun-bleached shores
a pantheon of gods where the acropolis soared
and Odysseus sailed through Homer’s tales
I hail from bullrings and faith and flamenco
terracotta rooftops scaling the hills
where towered cathedrals pierce the sky

I am of the crossroads of trade routes
temples, mosques and fairy chimneys
a chiseled warren of underground cities
of endless beaches and mangrove forests
tea gardens embroidering hills of jade
rickshaws, sampans, and floating markets
I lived by golden mountains and volcanic waters
an icy wilderness of pillars and geysers
clouded in the City of the Dead

Through ancestral portals ancient mothers
threaded strands of mitochondrial pearls
protozoa and bacteria, single-celled organisms
beyond the Earth and sun’s formations
I trailed my fingerprints
to the dust of stars

My great great great grandmother. Her mother was Indonesian and her father was a Dutch sea captain.

My mother called me and told me I need to drive to Colorado (17 hrs each way) to pick up six boxes of family heirlooms and transport them back to Oregon…Now.

The timing isn’t convenient as I’m committed to weekly babysitting for the Overlord so his mother can work, and I’ve signed up for NaNoWriMo for the first time ever. I shall write on the plane…yes, I’m traveling by plane and engaging the services of USPS for the boxes.

My mom grew up in Indonesia where my grandfather worked for the Dutch government. Our family goes back quite a few generations in that part of the world, and we are proud of the sliver of Indonesian heritage that flows through our veins.

My mother still identifies as Indonesian, an assertion that earns her an odd look from time to time. During WWII, my grandfather was interred in a Japanese POW camp. My grandmother and her children escaped that fate – because of those droplets of Indonesian blood.

When I was a girl, my grandmother told me stories of those years, of supporting her children by painting portraits of Japanese officers, of lobbing chickens over the camp wall. My grandfather, a large man, weighed 95 lbs at the end of the war.

My mother has a few Indonesian plates and vases, batiked linens, wood carvings, and other unusual pieces that I have mused over since I was a little girl and first allowed to touch them. I like old things that are infused with history. I think about the artists who made them, my ancestors who cared for them. Some pieces go back over two hundred years to my great great grandparents. They’re part of our family heritage and as the family grows, these heirlooms will be dispersed to an ever-widening circle of descendants.

Sometime in the next year or so my parents will be relocating to Oregon to live closer to me. My mom has entered a packing frenzy and has begun giving items away in an effort to lighten the load. I asked her not to part with the family history. She doesn’t understand what I mean. She wants me there to explain and so I will go.