The River Between Us

✨ Sam

By Lucille Clifton

if he could have kept
the sky in his dark hand
he would have pulled it down
and held it.
it would have called him lord
as did the skinny women
in virginia. if he
could have gone to school
he would have learned to write
his story and not live it.
if he could have done better
he would have. oh stars
and stripes forever,
what did you do to my father?

— from Good Woman: Poems and a Memoir, 1969–1980

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🌿 Reading “Sam”

In “Sam,” Lucille Clifton addresses her abusive father not with anger, but with an unflinching compassion that does not erase his wrongdoing.

This is the power of Clifton’s poetry — her capacity to hold darkness with an open and tender heart. The poem itself becomes what her father could not write: a re-seeing of his story through her voice.

While reading this poem, I found myself returning to my own lineage — to the ways love and pain intertwine between parent and child in complicated relationships. Her poem taught me that forgiveness is not the same as forgetting. It is an act of expanded love — a willingness to re-see the full story while releasing emotional heaviness through compassionate witnessing.

To write, as Lucille reminds us, is to “learn to write our story and not live it.”
It is how we stop the cycle of silence and pain, and begin the flow of understanding — to heal and to grow out of it.

So I wrote this poem, to share with you. ✨

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💧 River Between Us

A poem by Sammi HAN

you are not from me
my mother declared
after i gave birth to my son —
who was four months old,
who lived nine full moons
beneath my ribs,
after twenty-eight long hours
of meeting him.

“why now?!” i asked.

i was uncertain and pale,
learning how to restart.
a new mother,
a stubborn daughter
who would not bend
to my mother’s will.

she said,
because i wanted you to know
how hard this was.

her voice —
a flickering light,
a shivering brook.

maybe she still regretted
never being able to bear.
maybe she wanted a child
who looked like her,
who carried her blood.

i didn’t know
how different it would be,
adopting a newborn baby
dropped from the sky —
a surprising package,
wrapped with hopes and fears.

i didn’t know
how different it could be
being mothers.

i looked at us,
and the boy between my breasts,
his eyes wide with sparkles.

the stars in him
led me
to the mouth of the river,

where my heart cracked open,
freeing like clouds.
i carried my mother
in my arms, reaching
to the running current
to receive truth,
so we
return to One.

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Afterword 🌿

When I wrote this poem, I felt that same current of gratitude and compassion moving through my memories with my late mother — through those hardest moments we once shared. Writing became a way to take the unsaid, the pain, out of my body and place it on the page, where it could find air, space to breathe, and a voice to release — toward love and freedom.

As the holidays approach and seasonal family gatherings unfold,
may we meet one another — and ourselves — with gentler, present hearts.
May we simply enjoy the shared moments,
as compassionate witnesses for one another. 💛

Thank you for reading.
My love to you all,
Sammi

✨ Writing as Reconciliation

What stories in your own life are still being lived rather than written?
What truth might emerge if you offered them your pen and paper — your breath, your compassionate attention?

I look forward to hearing from you! 🌿

© 2025 Sammi Xiao HAN | PresentWordTravels. All rights reserved.
This piece is part of an ongoing body of work that will become a published poetry collection. All content is the original creation of the author and protected by copyright.
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