Lessons from
the Ancestors
By Andrea Nicki
Make your life the size of a shoe box,
so if you need to leave your job, your city, your life
in the middle of the week,
just as your grandfather fled his country
with a carboard suitcase in the middle of the night,
you will be quick and light,
sheltering a single lit candle in your palm,
only your soul on your back.
Andrea Nicki is a poet and philosopher whose work blends lyric intensity with social analysis. She is a professor of ethics and a visiting fellow in ethics and creative writing at Birkbeck, University of London. She is finalizing a multidisciplinary book under contract with Bloomsbury Press and is at work on a poetry collection.
Photo by Mustafi Numann on Unsplash