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.
Comments
Post a Comment