What they have made me

Campbeltown, Argyll, Scotland, home of my Grandmother Elsie “Ferguson” Harbour’s family.

Awakening this morning
I am blushed with the dawn,
Standing at a frosty window
inhaling with an icy yawn,
Dogs are greeting the day
whining at the frozen grass,
You snug under the covers
my blonde blue-eyed lass,
I leave off my bathrobe
the cold good against my skin,
Feeling the call of forefathers
those Celtic Highlander men,
From deep in my sired soul
voices reach an open mental ear,
Guiding my footsteps in life
each day, week, month, and year,
There are others there to speak,
all from a far distant time,
Crafted by their ancient wisdom
knowledge carried in my mind,
I am grateful for their presence
for the things they let me know,
I am that which they have made me
a mosaic of my clan past tableau.

©2012, Donald Harbour

We are what we have been

Great Grandmother Francis Elizabeth Blasingame painting, age 14, ca. 1856.

The lines of life diverge,
Crisscrossed paths of breath,
Entwined fingers of the past,
A scrapbook collage to the future.
The ancestors wait to be found,
Furtive scribbled lines in books,
A birth, a marriage, baptism, burial.
Who are you to ask who am I?
Dig deeper into the yellowed pages.
Horse thief, laborer, carriage maker,
Farmers, housewives, soldiers, MIA.
Holding a hand before your face,
The skin has belong to so many,
What will you pass on to the next?
Kindred, owner, user, chromosome?
The DNA of yesteryear a burden,
The crushing weight of evolution,
A contribution to the pool of existence.
And yet, we are what we have been.

Copyright: 2008, Donald Harbour