Dear Ancestor

Your tombstone stands among the rest,

neglected and alone.

The name and date are chiseled out

on polished marble stone.

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,

so many 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.

Walter Butler Palmer