May 2017
Novice genealogist
tracing back decades,
Centuries traveling
Through ancestry
search and check
see map names shifting,
like platonic masses,
nations forming
Imploding, exploding,
political heat melting
meta
physical,
social,
spiritual,
living structures
living documents
living beings.
*Note: I have become the self-taught genealogist trying to trace my family’s roots in the US, and prior to immigration to the United States of America (some hundreds of years ago, some more recent). This 4 part poem is based on the things I have come to learn about my family paths here, and the political and social historical events that led them all to the US. It’s an experience that I think more people should try to do (though I realize it’s not something everyone has the information to do so with), it makes it easier to understand why things have come to pass in more recent years, as well as to feel more human, in the reality of what we take for granted, and how different things once were, for the ancestors we learn about. I aim not to place value judgement on the individuals who were my ancestors, because they were still human, good, bad, or otherwise, they had their qualities that genealogy does not allow us to necessarily see. But, I am able to appreciate better the world events that shaped their lives, and as a result my own; as well as be more empathetic to others on their own life paths, now.
She of Letters 