I am interested in how memory and imagination intersect to weave a story. Just as my aunty remembered her father, now I remember mine and can feel his spirit presence in spaces he once occupied physically. I live in a house that has contained other people, their voices and movement. Even as memory fades and becomes disjointed, sometimes I still see a shadow standing at the kitchen counter, hear a familiar sound at the door. My imagination remembers deeply and I am grateful for its firm hold on a world that I have loved.
Outside, sunlight glinted on dark leaves
as we wound down the mountain road.
And on something else, too,
it seemed. Aunty said,
“Your grandfather traveled
up here all the time.” She
was speaking to my generation,
not to her own – her sisters
nodded in agreement – and
not to the great-grandchildren,
happily puckering lips around
straws, gulping cold, sweet drinks.
“He knew the hill tribe people here,
and helped them. The school he
built, it’s somewhere …”
Her voice trailed off and it was
clear she did not know exactly
where. She had entered the
world of imagination. I came
into that world, too, gazing into
the shadows and light dancing
through the trees as we
continued our descent into
the city below.
Amphibious 