Totem

More about Totem

She’s always been there—
sometimes in a scum-laced pond,
a striped neck sunning bold
on a boulder.
Sometimes in memory,
tilting out of a box beneath childhood bed,
slowly waking into spring.

Sometimes she came cheap—
in her plastic pool, the dime-store special,
carried like a question
I didn’t yet know how to ask.

And once, I became her—
shell dragging over carpeted floor,
head darting out,
then in again.
Even my voice
took its time.

I used to wonder
if this retreat was failure.
But the Mayan wise one said:
you are turtle.
You lead because you know
how to disappear and dream.
You return bearing vision,
and gifts laid quiet in the sand.

You carry your home—
not to escape,
but to restore.

And when you forget,
Turtle rises,
neck to the moon,
watching,
without urgency,
until you remember
your belonging—
and how the sea will call
you back.