Ancestral

Over time and over land across the sea

Beneath the dust and layered rock

There are those that lead to you and me

Grandparents galore

Abuelas y abuelos

Gran peres et gran meres

All were there

Conceivers all

Locked together

In the long and leafy tree of

Delight and love

Toil and misery.

They were many

And are still there

To be seen

To be known

By a mindful viewer

A true time traveler

We must all claim

The skeletons we find

And those we’d rather not.

Our kin, shifters of bones sifting for marrow

Our kin, seed and egg makers

Our kin, lifelong love makers

Our kin, lost in loveless forever pairings

Some were herders who came home

After nights of small fires under the great star blanket

Some were gatherers who never knew a dry spell

Others cursed the earth and the sky

When the land made them leave and walk away

There were shes who could smell healing

Bringing sons and daughters back to life

Who, once saved, told their children of these mothers

And saw they could heal as well

A gift from all to all

Taken hither and yon

We are here by chance and purpose

Persisting together

Pairing and birthing the ancestral variety

We’re here because

Back there

Along a river

Because of love

Plain and true

A woman came to a man

Free to choose

Like the wild mare

And here also by cruel timing

Came an unwanted joining

Near another river

The woman our mother

Who stumbled from that river

Carrying a new woman

Another forebear

Another we share

Shes

Choiceless along much of civilized time

Shes

Given over and again

By heartless tradition

As payment to the order.

Or we’re here because

A man, a he, prowling his urges

Driven by desire

Siring others

And hoping for males

A he of property

An owner of an untrue heart

Fathering yours to be.

We come from gasping warriors

And workers grasping at straws

From broke back women and men

And from a cave child wearing jewels

And from a singer and his muse

We come from fire makers

Some burned for food

Some burned for loot

Many were heart breakers

Magic makers, liars and fakers

Picture makers, caretakers

Voices that captured, that led to good

To bad

To song

Soothsayers to please and scare the mighty

So, traveler, speak

How was the journey?

Will you come back again?
Will you sleep tonight with the people you’ve met
Sleep with the Nameless
The Anonymous
The Essentially Yours

Insuring your being?

We are progeny of that vast past

When we travel to them

We become the poet’s multitude

The everyone.