Roots
We don’t want
to talk about
those people,
the ones that came
before
It was hard,
being poor,
the war, the work
that chapped the hands
and curved the back
Why remember
the unpleasantness
of their struggles,
when you can focus
on now
But see how my roots
still entwine me,
the fearful folk who fled
their home ground,
unwelcome there
I am bound
by ideas unconscious
but carried
carried into the future
by them, by me
Their blood still pulses
in my veins, they
keep me alive
through every hard
loss
They are the salt
in my blood
that savors me
flavors me,
their sweat, their tears
I am from those
who came before,
though I never knew them-
gone long before
I ever became
I am full
of generations,
even of their joy
in knowing
I carry them still
Eliel Fionn 12/29/23