A brief history of genealogy

compact like sand grains in an hourglass
the minutes you spend narrating a story of an origin

like sand grains the voices are now
closer to being characters than people who have once hugged me into life

you say, gently with the peeling of beans:

one came with the eastern wind from where others are now escaping
the land of good food, merry afternoons and Palmyra making space for other civilisations

another came from the land of wine, vowels, warm suns
Roman ruins without retaining the language only short sleep and merriment

a third descends from where the cedars converse with God
on the matters of ordinary men and women between day-light and sun-down

the forth was birthed where I am standing,
surrounded with olives trees, dust, sunshine and struggles

binding is this difference, conflicting is this fear
of letting it go to waste; that beauty, that richness, that spirit

hard to tell, I lean toward the western sun,
teach myself to rewrite my contradiction like an old useless chapter of a long book

all this, then runs in my blood
of this genealogy I inherited the fear and a traveler's will

a bird has no roots
irrespective of its wings, it has, a home.