Genealogy Poems

Found these while surfing the web. I'll posting in multiple entries since I found alot I'd like to share.

"From those women and men
of great spirit, intelligence, and strength
who came before us and said 'yes' to life,
may we embody the best of their qualities.
In gratitude for their lives lived,
let us now continue to build a world
based on love, and on our inherited wisdom
about the oneness of the Creator and of the Creation
in all its fabulous diversity of nations, races religions, species.
As sure as the Oreckovskys and families like them were
pioneer people with vision and courage in changing times,
so can we follow in their footsteps, living our lives
in awe of all that has come before us,
and in devotion to each other and our
precious global living community,
knowing who we are."

Just Folks
Just Folks

I am like him, so they say,
Who was dead before I came.
Cheeks and mouth and eyes of gray
Have been fashioned much the same.

I am like her, so they say,
Who was dead ere I was born,
And I walk the self-same way
On the paths her feet have worn.

There is that within my face
And the way I hold my head
Which seems strangely to replace
Those who long have joined the dead.

Thus across the distance far
In the body housing me
Both my great-grandparents are
Kept alive in memory.

DEAR ANCESTOR
Your tombstone stands among the rest;
Neglected and alone.
The name and date are chiseled out
On polished, marbled stone.
It reaches out to all who care
It is too late to mourn.
You did not know that I exist
You died and I was born.
Yet each of us are cells of you
In flesh, in blood, in bone.
Our blood contracts and beats a pulse
Entirely not our own.
Dear Ancestor, the place you filled
One hundred years ago
Spreads out among the ones you left
Who would have loved you so.
I wonder if you lived and loved,
I wonder if you knew
That someday I would find this spot,
And come to visit you.

Why Me?

Why me,
This is a tedious task, much work.
Not a great tree, my family,
Not any kind of tree,
A spindly twig....
A stunted sapling of little importance,
No forest giant we.

A pause

Ethereal whispers
Persuasive, soft and still.
"Daughter, if you don't remember us,
Who will?

Dot Stutter,
Victoria, BC. Canada, 1996