To Those That Came Before and Gave Me Life

Like so many of us who come from the Cahokia, Illinois area the traces of my ancestors range from Europe, via the eastern seaboard, through the great Smokey Mountains into Missouri and Illinois and also from Mobile, New Orleans and Canada following the fertile flood plain of the great Mississippi River to the St Louis area, once truly the gateway to the West. Many, many ancestors have contributed to my genetic makeup and they live on through me and in my heart as do so many of my friends I have made along the way. We are all linked either directly by blood or indirectly by way of the heart.

I often think of my ancestors and wonder if they know I do and how I try to imagine them and the lives they lived. And to thank them, and send them love, for without them I wouldn't be here. In honor of and in awe of the many ancestors that contributed to my physical and spiritual composite and of my friends who have contributed to my life I wrote this poem back in 1998 to try to  express my thanks to those ancestors who have gone before. Especially those I shared my life with and loved with a passion, those friends and family members we hold dearest, even those we feel disappointed with but have forgiven. The last stanza reminds us to not wait for our lives to end before saying those things we want to say to those we love but have held back for whatever reason.

What does it all mean? Or what does it all matter? I don't really know - but in some way I do. Today, I'm not even sure what this poem means - or what inspired it. It just came out.

Love by Spirit's Grace

This odd genetic potpourri, now living here in Tennessee
A double helix in the rough, and metamorphed from basic stuff
Chromosomes from mother earth supplied the pattern for my birth
The memory of each gene-wrought cell, sings of Heaven, stings of Hell

Many fathers and many mothers, have fueled my passions, shaped my druthers
Forged my body and tint my reason, gave me vice and set my season
A single transgenetic fusion with no forethought or collusion
A mating of the poles of nature that played no favorite, planned no measure

This spirit though it be misshapen, flawed for certain, but not mistaken
Exists as God must have intended, a work in progress to be blended
Melded with the lives of others, all are sisters, all are brothers
Interwoven into one, the blood of mothers, fathers gone

Man's spirit is where power resides, where mountains rest, where oceans tides
Do ebb and flow with every breath, it gives us life and wills us death
Oh Heart! You are the spirits brush, with love you paint the flower's first blush
With love you grace the sparrow's nest, with love you shade our final rest

Whatever time my final turn is, cast me deep into the furnace
Give my spirit back to God, and spread my ashes to be trod
By those who must their time endure, as I did mine and rest assured
The mind can only bare embrace the power of love by spirit's grace

Life's petals falling one by one, the last one bowing to the sun
Our home is where the heart lives on, not in this sack of flesh and bones
In spirit we are not apart, why even now you're in my heart
And I'm in yours and never gone, there in your heart forever on

So, don't wait for what the brush disturbs, give me right now your final words
Your secret thoughts you hold so dear, your finest smile, your smallest tear
Before you sets a pot of gold, so pick it up for it's been told
That once you hold it you will see, love is all life's meant to be.