Today’s poem is Kissing the Opelu by Donovan Kūhiō Colleps.

The Slowdown is currently taking a break. We’ll be back soon with new episodes from a new host. This week, we’re going back into the archive to revisit Tracy K. Smith’s time as host. Today’s episode was originally released on May 21, 2020.

In this episode, Tracy writes… “Today’s poem speaks to me of ancestry, tradition, and the fluidity of perception. We are who we are, the poem suggests to me, because of what we inherit from the people we love. Why does it have me thinking about ghosts and visitations? Maybe because I’ve decided that the people I love are always with me in one form or another.”

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