There is no room for hubris in her. Memories may erode
but she does not force her footprints into the sand.
She knows her stone feet were not meant to last.
Her mark was made in a different way –
Acts of care ripple over time, etching
into both soil and sea. Her legacy is not lost when the wind blows.
No, it spreads. Constellating across new minds
alive with that same coiled kindness.
She is memory embalmed: in a soot-covered child’s exhausted sigh,
or the careful sounds of a woman reading her name aloud.
That legacy canopies. It is a safe shade that time dapples through
onto those glancing back before taking a step.
Girls unfurling, dream of winning a marathon,
women whisper their band’s name into a pillow at night.
Maybe others cut hair, lead the charge, chart the stars, write, mend, build?
Within us we carry all of what was and what will.
But, always, we must live bright and care loudly.
For that is how the stars mark the passing of time.
They watch, giving names to radiant shimmers in the dark –
Betty, Cranogwen, Elaine, Margaret, Elizabeth.
Hanan Issa
National Poet of Wales 2022-2027