DEAR ANCESTOR

Your tombstone stands among the rest; neglected & alone.
The name & 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 & 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 as you lived and loved, I wonder if you knew,
That someday I would find this spot, and come to visit you.
Author may be: Walter Butler Palmer 1906

DEAR ANCESTOR

Your tombstone stands among the rest; neglected & alone.
The name & 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 & 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 as you lived and loved, I wonder if you knew,
That someday I would find this spot, and come to visit you.
Author may be: Walter Butler Palmer 1906