ONEATA, ONE AND TWO

My name is engraved on a granite headstone

With a date that isn’t mine.

I have seen her sepia pictures.

She was tall and dark with unspoken words

shaping her lips, hovering in her eyes.

She was named by my English Great Grandfather,

And I was named for her, my Grandfather’s beloved sister

As she lay dying in an agony of pain that oh, so

Slow summer, long ago.

Where did our name come from? I often

Wondered as I stood staring at her headstone nestled

In the long grass of Elmwood. Until today.

Today I discovered there is an island in the fabled land of Tongua

Named “Oneata”. How fitting that “Oneata” should be

A far away place with oceans and lands between here and there

As there are oceans of time and change lie between she and I.

Perhaps that old Englishman had heard of Oneata Island and thought it a

Good name for this daughter of his elder years. He may have thought

She would be an island of refuge and delight in the seas of his old age or

Then again maybe it was only romantic whimsy that caught his fancy.

This name, a source of family legend that has traveled further then her life, seems to me a

special link of kinship, a recognition of our shared essence though her thoughts are

hidden from me even as that tiny island floating in the vast Pacific ocean.