booksartyoume

'Some days I feel every step' timothy r gates, 11/26/2008

Granddaddy,
Irish-German immigrant parents
died,
six year old, orphaned.
Grandmother,
Irish-German immigrant father
Cherokee mother,
raised by her Mammy
in Kentucky.
American, uniquely so
wed twelve years past
Annie's repose, 'she shot as well as any man,'
Grandpa would say.
Grandma stepped in
raised her cousin's, eighteen years her elderess,
four children.
her own, four, later.
(Annie, 'she shot as well as any man,'
died giving birth thirty-two years
after the Civil War.)
Granddaddy and Annie
pushed Nellie in a stroller,
a privileged person's ride,
on the grounds of Grandma's
Kentucky farm.
Bottled tears
brought these paths together,
podvig, karma's struggle
give me their stories,
their story,
my story.
Martyrs instruct me:
German Great-Grandparents, short lived immigrants
Irish indentured servants
German coal miners
fourth generation land-owners
Cherokee Great-Grandmother
African Mammy and her children.
hymns and dirges I've learned,
I know,
I sing,
I write,
I weep,
I laugh aloud,
my story being written,
their story
where my steps are placed.
(some days I feel every step.)