Telling Fortunes In The Sand
Poem: Where do you find your ancestral totem-faces?
1 min readFeb 20, 2023
The fortune teller sits in the river,
playing with the sand.
It’s so fine and soft,
like the feathers of a
tiny bird in her hands.
She traces ancient totem-faces
in the bottom of the river,
easy to see for the water is so clear.
The fortune teller lets the sand
drain through her fingers,
until a wet shape remains —
a horse, a flower, a blade.
For a moment she holds
the sand before her,
like a child playing
with a lump of clay.
Then it slips through her fingers,
a stream of sand-colored silk,
the frayed edges sinking
into the bright water.
