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You who are new here,
who name your ancestors
through
ships that sailed from Ireland
or from Italy;
who trace your ties with
this land
through a mere two or three centuries;
how can you possibly
understand
the hold a thousand generations
have upon me?
Twenty
thousand years ago,
the blood of my grandmothers
splashed on the ground
of birthing lodges
on this continent.
Twenty thousand years ago,
the
bodies of my grandfathers
crumbled into soil
on this continent.
It is
not history that holds me here,
or tradition,
or wanderlust.
It is
blood—
the blood of a thousand generations
running through
soil,
and through time,
into my veins
