Learning the Names of My Ancestors

A woman called Raisel lived in Podkamien,

where she sewed shrouds for the dead.

When the Soviets invaded her town,

she gave so many away that she was left with nothing

for her own burial, on the side of the road—

no gravestone. Her daughter made a map

so she could find her again, someday.

I don’t know where that small scrap

of paper is now, whether it disintegrated

as later generations clawed their way out

once more, or if it died with the people

who couldn’t escape. But at the cliff-horizon

where sun illuminates the outcropping,

I see lines like arrows etched in gold,

pointing to a home from long ago.

In Polish, Podkamien means below the rock.

I picture Raisel—across seas, centuries—

standing, just as I do, at the foot of mountains.