Poem

The Invitation to Call on Our Ancestors

The invitation to call on our ancestors has always triggered a sense of dread in me.

If I conjured up these Celts, Scots, Brits, Welsh, and Germans would they burn me at the stake, murder all my friends? Would they sack the small town where I live? Tear down the houses of worship?

So little is truly known about ancestors that isn’t bound up in histories that are themselves false narratives. Can we ever know these people who came before us?

Would it not be better to create them in our own image? We belong by dint of our being. That’s all.

There is in me most likely a great, great, great, aunt with a sweet disposition, a well-spring of patience, and an easy smile; a far distant cousin who was shy, who doubted themselves as much as I do.

There is for a fact a violent, alcoholic grandfather whom I’ve managed to tame. Another grandfather who died in a mental institution and whom I particularly favor in my own unbalanced mind and heart. Dear misunderstood soul: if only I could hold your hand, massage the laugh lines around your eyes, let you know that I, for one, have managed to survive with some of your genetic code. Maybe even survived because of it.

I belong because I am. The justification for my being is in this hand, these hazel eyes, this voice, this breath, this pause, this beginning again.

To all my ancestors — blessed, tormented, violent, delicate, indulgent, caring, delightful, tedious, lost, found, and remembered by me in this body — I bow.