Salt Letter

This is the chest I brought up from the water
I heard the scholar knows how to read
I don't know letters
I have to know what I was carrying

I open the soaked documents carefully
The seal of the Royal Secretariat, a historian's hand
The year of the uprising, ten years ago
The records the court wanted buried
The names of those who bought false testimony
The ledger of those who framed people to their deaths

I set down the brush and stood up
Now I know why I came to this island
I was not exiled for writing the truth
I was sent to the place where the truth was buried

Salt letter, salt letter
The writing the sea kept for ten years
Salt letter, salt letter
Fire burns, but salt preserves
What the dead hid away
The living carry on

The hand that erased me and the hand that sank this ship
The same hand. The same seal.
They sank them to shut their mouths
A whole ship. People and all.
The old fisherman never knew
For ten years, why his son died
What those bones are waiting for
Is not quiet. It is a name.

When this writing is finished
They will finally come back as names
Where the salt has erased, I will leave it blank
Because a blank is evidence too

Salt letter, salt letter
The writing the sea kept for ten years
Salt letter, salt letter
Fire burns, but salt preserves
What the dead hid away
The living carry on

The sea has always been generous with me
I harvested breath and abalone and it never blamed me
But if I dig beside the dead
Will the sea forgive me
A name, you said
Then I will go down at the dawn tide
What the dead have kept
The living must carry on

Salt letter, salt letter
The writing the sea kept for ten years
Salt letter, salt letter
Though the brush breaks, the ink does not dry
What the dead hid away
The living carry on