Sister Series 2020

Last year, I felt pulled to start a poetry series in alignment with International Women’s Day, titled Sister Series. In this series, I wrote poems with some specific women in mind, depicting past solely their skin, rather, penning about the beauty within their soul.

I felt a similar pull this year. When I went to go write these poems, I became overwhelmed with gratitude, for I’ve had the opportunity to become acquainted and know so many women over the past year. I decided to write every name I knew in a jar and picked out a few. Over the next month, I will be sharing these works with you.

While these poems were penned with specific women in mind—you will see your mother, your sister, your friend, maybe even yourself—in these poems. I want to encourage you to share these words with them, or even write a few of your own.

This first poem comes from a time I visited Ohio before I moved here for the second time; I was in the Columbus Museum of Art and started weeping for the people here. That’s the moment I knew that Ricky and I would move back here, and naturally, was the perfect poem to start off this series.

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Kindred

by Regan Smith

• • •

I walk through art galleries and weep, 
the paper and paint is beautiful, 
but these humans inhabiting this space
are what take my breath away. 

I see you be moved by an art piece, 
emotions emerging to the surface, 
until they’re shown on your skin. 

My heart is tied to yours, and 
with every atom, I can feel 
when you ache–when you have joy,
my heart soars alongside yours. 

And although today we may be strangers, 
our eyes link for a second,
and that scintillating moment
reminds us that we are sisters.