Salt Visitation / Joshua Alan Sturgill
I saw you as
I gathered salt
from pockets in the stones
along the sea’s edge.
Your face remained
half-veiled in white,
your feet were weathered
granite cliffs.
The Sun’s blush rested
on the flowers of
your hands, the rhythm
of the seasons
in your stooping
and straightening,
your gathering and your
careful casting away.
Mother, pray for me.
I am a family in pain.
My hands are salt-scoured,
my knees’ bends are numbered.
How old are you? Old
as seagulls’ thousand
thousand generations?
Young as their fragile eggs?
The labor is long
for all your children.
Will I always
be a child? Each new grief
washes past and leaves me
more sinewy
and more confused.
I am salt, or
I would not taste it;
light, or I could not see.
Shorelines shift with every tide.
Please, Mother, pray for me
All poetry and supplementary material: copyright 2026 by Joshua Alan Sturgill. All rights reserved.
