finger prints and photographs connections with the past place and time memories histories that are shared isolation keeps us hostage when we don’t push out of our cubby holes and dungeons to see sunlight clouds trees the past we find can’t box us in nor hold us underground when we discover the guest, the Unexpected One who shares our story, His story we the captives free the birth canal was scary the womb so tight, too close I fought to keep inside my safety held me in yet stand I now in open air this earth, she holds me loose entombed no more not dead am I but living I am birthed the shadow of the cross has left its mark on me finger prints and photographs remind me who I am but the cross it is that shapes me beyond place and time to be the one I am becoming