Within My Blood
I enter my primeval room lit with candles
from an ethnic sanctuary, and revisit
the mural of ancestral stories
where horses and men flock to graze
the oracles of generational chants
along a temple of ceremonies fed by rituals
now slowly molding in my mind…
the old folk confessions and communion
of decades cycled and recycled
by a rare history: parables marching back
to fables of peace -gongs and Asian warlike drums
claimed by time, claimed by my elder's rice wine,
that marrow against marrow
my flesh entwines among brave natives --
brothers of protection...mothers who nourish homes
as this ancestry cascades unto next heirs
of heirs of children like myself
bequeathing ruins and triumphs from
wise old souls, from our men’s legends…
and as the candle drifts,
my origin's history floods
these veins: I climb into life’s inner roots
and there my great forefather dwells
inside my blood... feisty, gentle, life-giving:
that somehow, I carry his heritage today,
I am his blood.
John Hamilton's Ancestral Roots
Submitted 6/10/2017
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