“These rocks are the church where I knelt in black worsted silk beside my mother. Her shoulders sharp beneath my embrace. My mother: a solid wailing. These rocks are the soil where she kneels before the whorls of roses, kneeing before that box as if it were my father's grave. The closed anemones offer their sticky blossoms as the tide washes toward me. Small bits of the coast meet my skin, scraping my iron onto my knees.” ParentsBeachMarine Life Book:Former Possessions of the Spanish Empire Source: Former Possessions of the Spanish Empire
“The pelicans paddle in coils of waves and light. Low tide reveals fissures of saltwater and rock. From the smallest crevices color insists-colonies of jade anemones, a purple starfish harvest, barnacles hiding beaks of unbleached linen, black mussel bouquets. Between the air and sea, -this, one large prayer. I kneel.” OceanBeachMarine Life Book:Former Possessions of the Spanish Empire Source: Former Possessions of the Spanish Empire
“The tide moves me higher on the crags. My joints crunch like the mussels and barnacles beneath my boots. I walk a tightrope, from here to another ocean huddled with archipelagos where ancestral canoes set to paddle across the world. I teeter and my hands catch the water rising cold. The sea we come from is much warmer.” BeachMarine LifeTide Book:Former Possessions of the Spanish Empire Source: Former Possessions of the Spanish Empire