Dear 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 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."

By Walter Butler Palmer (1868-1932), written in 1906

Dear 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 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."

By Walter Butler Palmer (1868-1932), written in 1906