Fred LaMotte: Ancestry

I love this poem. Here is illuminated our interconnection with all that is. While so many be continuing to build barriers  of disconnection, there are those who bless us with remembrance of deeper truths. In the words of Thích Nhất Hạnh, "We are here to awaken from the illusion of our separateness." So true. And in this awakening, this remembering of the sacred thread that is woven through all of life, we are transformed. Blessed be. 🙏 Molly

Photo by Molly

Ancestry

My Ancestry DNA results came in.

Just as I suspected, my great great grandfather

was a monarch butterfly.

Much of who I am is still wriggling under a stone.

I am part larva, but part hummingbird too.

There is dinosaur tar in my bone marrow.

My golden hair sprang out of a meadow in Palestine.

Genghis Khan is my fourth cousin,

but I didn't get his dimples.

My loins are loaded with banyan seeds from Sri Lanka,

but I descended from Ravanna, not Ram.

My uncle is a mastodon.

There are traces of white people in my saliva.

3.7 billion years ago I swirled in golden dust,

dreaming of a planet overgrown with lingams and yonis.

More recently, say 60,000 B.C.

I walked on hairy paws across a land bridge

joining Sweden to Botswana.

I am the bastard of the sun and moon.

I can no longer hide my heritage of raindrops and cougar scat.

I am made of your grandmother's tears.

You conquered rival tribesmen of your own color,

chained them together, marched them naked to the coast,

and sold them to colonials from Savannah.

I was that brother you sold, I was the slave trader,

I was the chain.

Admit it, you have wings, vast and golden,

like mine, like mine.

You have sweat, black and salty,

like mine, like mine.

You have secrets silently singing in your blood,

like mine, like mine.

Don't pretend that earth is not one family.

Don't pretend we never hung from the same branch.

Don't pretend we don't ripen on each other's breath.

Don't pretend we didn't come here to forgive.

― Fred LaMotte