THOSE SETTLER ANCESTORS, THOSE COLONIALS

Those settler ancestors, those colonials

seem in some ways little more than an edition

of Shakespeare’s plays or a family Bible

I thumb through sometimes.

          Whipcrack, draywheel and fol-de-rol.

Or else they are like candles, quaint and archaic,

kept in the back of a cupboard and only

brought out when we need to cast a romantic

glow on ourselves, or the power goes down

          Whipcrack, draywheel and fol-de-rol.

and New World light bulbs simply won’t do.

Dour is the word; they look grim in photographs

pale with age, bundled up in their hardships

and Victorian habits of thought.

          Whipcrack, draywheel and fol-de-rol.

Would they be disappointed in me, the terminal

branch of their family tree, they who survived on

the Mars of their day when I would surely not?

The end of this sentence, beyond the fields we know.

          Whipcrack, draywheel and fol-de-rol.