The Keeper

Tracking descendants down through time.
familiar names fog ancient texts--
Smiths and Joneses abound
yet, with a determined air, she unearths
the ones that figure into her genial thread:
we are they carried forward.

Mordecai's bible opens windows letting in
fresh air to waft away the smoke.
Yellowed photographs of the stern-visaged great-greats
invoke messages from beyond pleading that they
be not lost or forgotten. Their words, their faces
are mirrored down through the ages.

Tales linger of journeys taken, history
is not finite: it leaves trails if we
but keep the lines straight though time
convolutes the once simple. Ashes
and dust add their voices to the story:
once upon a time is now.

The sum of a life is more than an addition
of sons or daughters. There is much
to be learned when we look back
to look forward. Ancestors are our children
in the annals of time: dust reformed into dreams.
She is the keeper of the legacies and tomorrow.