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 some day I would find this spot and come to visit you.
by Walter Butler Palmer (1868-1932) written in 1906.

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 some day I would find this spot and come to visit you.
by Walter Butler Palmer (1868-1932) written in 1906.