–inspired by Alberto Rios
I wonder about the first ancestors of me,
all those hundreds and maybe thousands
of years ago, so many mothers
of mothers and fathers of fathers.
What of them came to life
again in me?
Great Aunt Beatrice was an artist and poet.
I have her apple blossoms painted on pottery
but have set her poems aside.
They are all fully rhymed.
A fourth great-grandfather owned a store—
a stop on the Underground Railroad—and
from it I have a chestnut cabinet
that held spools from days when
clothes were hand-sewn.
And what about ancestors of thought that
I’ve woven into myself, whose words
instruct me like genes? Aye, for the Irish
in me, who wouldn’t choose
Yeats or Heaney?
For my Scots blood, I’ll point to a philosopher–
anyone Enlightened will do; then I’ll move
through German roots to Kant admitting
reason has limits. We’re not brains
without bodies, nor
bodies without spirit.
I want to be whole, too, want whatever blood
rises from these bones to nourish my mind
and keep me alive for the small moments
so that I’m able to feel each one in this
handed-down body, this
sentient thing that I am.
