Mikaela Castledine #364 Heirloom

I had religion once

I was given it as a child

it belonged to my mother

and she herself had carried it

all smoke dark teakwood

pigmented in indigo and green

through the long dislocation

of her own childhood

and I knew I should look after it

but beyond

a fitful spit and sleeve rub polish

to raise its shine

in which to look and see my face 

reflected gold and gessoed red

it mostly baubled there

in dusty hush

with the stilling of its quiet chime

I had religion once

but then I lost it

and looking for it

among the weary unearthing

of her artefacts

searching for treasured fossils

and the miniatures of ancestry

found only traces

of the lacquered veneer

like the shedding of

an old tempera shellcrack

I wonder if she took it

once again upon her journey

held fisted fast

upon her breast into the ground

Crucifix, oil on wood, Valerie McDonald 1990's