"DEAR ANCESTOR" Poem by Walter Butler Palmer

Your tombstone stands among the rest
Neglected and alone.
The name and date are chiseled out,
On marbled polished 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 and blood and 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.

"DEAR ANCESTOR" Poem by Walter Butler Palmer

Your tombstone stands among the rest
Neglected and alone.
The name and date are chiseled out,
On marbled polished 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 and blood and 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.