Ancestors

Smith Family Farm

Pelham, Georgia

Settled, c. 1880

I.

Broken china and glass

Sprout from the rows

Of a black, plowed field

After the rain—

One last try

By ancestral eyes

For a glimpse

Of the corn-

Tasseled skies.

II.

White china seed—

Familial fragments of

Stoneware cups and plates

Sown into a vernal cycle,

As if some spring,

When the rains fall just right,

Chimney-shingled houses,

paint-layered swings,

And screened porches

Will suddenly burst

From the ground,

Complete with

Coffee-brewed fathers,

Beauty-shopped mothers,

And the late-yard sounds

Of dinner calls and

Laughing children

Chasing hedge-toads

On night-light lawns.

III.

I know—

The dead hopes,

The odd ambitions,

The lure of measuring

What we lived

By things we left behind,

But I could not resist,

So last spring,

With a dinner plate

Of everyday china

And a hammer

From the barn in hand,

I walked one evening

To a back acre

Of plowed land.

While the creek murmured

A song wet and low

And the dogwoods bloomed white,

With a swift, breaking blow

I entered the ancient passage

From earth and night

To groundbreaking and light:

Time to plant,

My fathers,

Time to sow.