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Dear Ancestor,
Your tombstone stands among the rest, neglected and alone,
The name, the date, are chiseled out in weather-beaten stone.
It reaches out for all to see, it is too late to mourn,
You did not know I would exist, you died and I was born.
Yet each of us are part of you, in flesh, in blood, in bone,
And in my breast there beats a pulse entirely not my 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.
~Author: Walter Butler Palmer
(Courtesy of Sheryl Kelso)
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