Your footprints sink deep into this Earth

Deeper than your small feet should allow

Your footprints imbed

Tropical-like heat into this Western concrete and manufactured soil.

Your footprints give life and prevent the land from spoil

From the over-used, much abused, misinformed lies

Which occupies the minds of our old

And of our youth.

Your footprints, when finally studied

And legitimate enough to be embraced,

Prove where we, your children may go and where we still face hatred.

The fainter the footprint the darker the tale.

A story of unjust exodus unfolds as the footprints fade,

As the footprints erase.

There is deep shame in your words which deepen

With the eyes you won’t face me with

But your footprints remain

And speak shamefully of the nations

No one needs me to name.

Your stories aren’t ones that you tell

Yet with all of these

Gaps and spaces

Mama

Your footprints suggest that you fell.

They do not speak well of a society that only lets you perch

And never lets you dwell.

Your footprints intimately beg to be reunited with the feet that placed them there.

Hesitantly I dare to even wonder

If you expect my footprints to do what yours have done

For generations to come

Continued by daughters and sons

That I have not known, named or loved.

I can only attempt to mimic your footprints

I have seen the pain you took with each step

The bravery, the depth

I just ask of myself to step firmly enough to leave an impression

To leave a subtle suggestion for later generations -

It’s our turn now, you rest.