I have one regret: that you will never meet
your grandfather, though your grandfather is alive
and waiting, as is your grandmother,

slicing cabbage for soup in their kitchen. 
That you will never see
the mountains from my youth I am still

lost in and long for—
long for as an adult
its rivers, salamanders, painter turtles,

hawk spiraling, mole scurrying, wild
grapes and lilies
that you will not know.

That you will not know me
as a mother, as a grandmother, as a
human, a sister, a friend.

That you may not feel
small in a universe
of black holes, an earth

water-covered yet erupting fire
under one hot star, which, like you,
instead of emerging is washed away with light.