The Ancestor

Your tombstone stands among the rest;

Neglected and alone.

The name and date are chiseled out

On polished, marble 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 how you lived and loved,

I wonder if you knew

That someday I would find this spot,

And come to visit you.

~ Walter Butler Palmer, 1906 ~