By Mason Pfaff

Flowers on every road 
lead me to my grave stones
There's a blue box, my heirloom.
A white stone white stone
A name not my own

I'll smell every one,
I'll find my name in the Popol Vuh.
White stone white stone 
Bearing your maiden name

Palm branches laid on Monday
Skipped town Friday,
what I would do I do not know.
White stone white stone 
My father's name is put on me

Names I do not know.
Names that came before 
etched on a blue box,
my heirloom for storage
White stone white stone
My father's name has grown on me

I visit the old creek;
It trickles as before, 
When my dog brought back a deer antler
And I fell in through the ice
White stone white stone
My father's sins my own

No names underwater,
No names beneath the ice
I breathe the cold water,
I reach the river's mouth
There with all from before,
Soon with all yet to be.

No white stone no white stone,
I know all the names, 
The blue box is full and passed down again
No white stone, oh white stone,
I know this name, 
Oh white stone oh white stone 
It is my own, it is my own, it is my own

Editor’s Note: The poem – White Stones – was originally published by Written Tales, an online publication, in April of 2024 and is shown here with permission.