Sylvia

Queen Emma’s Palace, Honolulu. Mom at the piano, in her element. Me by her side.

She bore a poet’s name—

given first by Shakespeare,

and she kept its promise.

“Who is Silvia? what is she?”

Named for a woman of verse and light,

for Shakespeare’s Silvia—beloved,

steadfast,

worth defying fathers and crossing boundaries for—

born of a mother who loved words enough

to give them flesh

and call them daughter.

You learned early

that language could live in the hands—

ten fingers finding what the heart

could not always say aloud.

The piano became your voice.

Not for performance,

but for truth.

Notes shaped by feeling,

by listening,

by staying

when others wandered away.

You lived up to your name

the moment you met Jack—

when love arrived not as permission,

but as knowing.

Not long after, you chose him,

eloping against your parents’ wishes,

faithful to the truth you recognized,

as Shakespeare’s Silvia was—loving not lightly,

but with resolve.

You were melody and measure,

gentle and exacting,

able to soothe

or summon strength

with the same unwavering touch.

Mother of four daughters,

you held us not softly,

but fiercely—a protector whose love stood guard,

whose vigilance never slept.

You gave generously—time, music, care,

your whole self—never asking

if there would be enough left.

There always was.

Even now,

your music has not ended.

It moves through rooms we enter,

through habits of kindness,

through the way we listen

before we speak.

Your melody remains—heard not with the ear,

but with the heart—and felt wherever love,

brave and chosen,

decides to stay.

Writing this poem reminded me that legacy is not always something we set out to record. More often, it is something we live inside of without naming—until a pause makes it visible.

As I work through The Matriarch’s Legacy, I keep returning to the women who did not announce themselves, who did not need permission to love fiercely or to stay. Women whose influence moved through rooms quietly, shaping the way children listened, the way homes held together, the way courage learned to sound like calm.

My mother was one of those women.

Her music was never meant for applause. It was meant for steadiness—for the long work of showing up, of choosing love with resolve, of guarding what mattered. I see now how much of that rhythm lives on, not only in me, but in the generations that follow.

If this poem belongs anywhere, it belongs here—alongside a story about inheritance, resilience, and the unseen forces that carry us forward. Some legacies are written into history. Others are given to us in hands, in habits, in the way we learn to listen before we speak.

Her melody remains. And so does the work it taught me to do. What she gave still moves through us, note by note.