A Woman’s Legacy Lives On In Her Daughter’s Art

So now the story is written on stone.
Whose voice is heard?  How do we know the voice of truth?
Where is the story going?
Are we a part of it?
Do I get to write my own version or is it already written?
How do I know if I’m following the right path?
Sometimes there seems to be no guide and I have to feel my way.
Where are the ones who have gone before?
Can they help me? 
Do I remember their stories?
The story changes all the time.
How can we know what is true?

Where is the way home?
How can we find the path?
What do we mean by home?
Is it the place we were born?
Is it what has become home as we have moved on?
Is it the deeper place, the inner longing that draws us forward?
Are we alone or do we share this longing?
Are we on the same journey or separate ones?
Are we brothers and sisters or are we strangers?
Do we extend hands of peace or aim a gun?
And if we lie wounded next to each other, are we so different?
And if we lie buried next to each other, are we so different?
And if we dance together, are we so different?
Where is the oneness of the world, the still point where the surface is clear and calm
And where we see ourselves reflected as one of the myriad leaves on the vast human tree?
Are Kannon’s thousand hands enough to embrace us all?

Who writes history?
Who lives history?
Where is my story?
Where is your story?
Aren’t we a part of history too?
Do you see yourself in the eyes of these faces, a steady stream from the beginning of remembered time?
How can we be the most human in a world where people seem to forget so easily what “human” is?

Who tells our stories?
We are un-named by history.
Who will think of us when we are gone?
What does our passage on this earth mean?
Where are we going?
Why are we here?
Who will remember?
Can you see yourself in this mirror?

Does history depend on memory?
What we don’t remember, what we don’t write down or tell someone is lost as if it never happened.
Where does that leave the stories of most of humanity?
Maybe if one person’s story is written, one person’s face photographed, it somehow stands in for each of us. 
At least we are not completely obliterated. 

Each face is its own.  We are all different.
Does that frighten us or bond us together?
Can we look into a stranger’s face and find a reflection of our self?
Don’t we all bleed, cry, make love, die?
How can ideas so distort a recognition of our common plight?
We are all traveling this earth, wandering over the sphere of the planet – seeking.
It sometimes seems like a long pilgrimage without end, and still we journey because there is nothing else we can do.
We are all fellow travelers, all of our foibles and virtues accompanying us as we go.
Can we find a way to remember who we really are beneath the shimmering surface of apparent difference?
Can we find a way to remember who we really are and to reach out and touch another with tenderness?
Can we hold the whole world in our hands?