a tree from lost generations

great
great
great
grandparents walked the homeland
their footprints were artifacts in the wet mud
memories of a time
they found the only patch of land that hadn’t 
been consumed by someone else

in their right hand they held seeds 
and in their left a garden shovel

those seeds were tucked under earthen
ground, blessed with water above and
warmth below

they soon blossomed into little babies
who cried for their parents at night
waiting for a cradle to rock them to sleep
they still needed someone to water them
someone to help them grow

but these babies became children
and these children became adults
and these adults needed no one’s help
and they wanted to be as far from the soil as possible
they became bustling city folk breathing in
polluted air and hearing the car horns that 
splattered impatience on the busy streets
they trudged aimlessly along the cracked
sidewalks, never taking a moment to
observe the person waving to them across
the street

and eventually they needed more space to
stretch their limbs
they wanted to leave
they headed for america

where air didn’t smell of gasoline
where there was space for their seeds 
to grow
their leaves could finally reach sunlight
they no longer had to fight for water
they no longer had to fight for ground

but
somehow

they still found something to fight about

they realized the soil wasn’t like the
soil they grew up in back home
they realized the soil was changing their children
they realized that a tree was growing
flooded with leaves, flowers, branches

but you could no longer see the roots

the roots were back in their homeland
the roots were supporting this family
the roots remained with the seed
the roots are what kept the family tree alive