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Legacy


Now that I am of that age where

retirement is closer than the climbing years,

I often think about this idea of legacy.

Like Ozymandias, does my ego

get left behind

like a plaque outside of a teacher's room

"This room belonged to Ms. Beth Powers

who taught at Kamehameha for 50 years."

The plaque does not talk about her disdain for us brownies,

or the way her red pen slashed through our essays

like a knife carving out vitriol with each stroke.

It does not talk about her blatant racism towards

us dumb Hawaiians

or the colonizing arrogance that she,

not even an English major,

was the best choice to enlighten the illiterates 

for 50 years.

If the generational trauma she left behind for 50 years

is what a legacy is about,

let me walk quietly through the exit doors,

silent as the mist,

anonymous as a shadow

let me be a wondering by random strangers

long after I am gone. 

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