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.
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