BLOODLINES

From my mother I get
my blond hair and blue eyes
my lack of height
my intense desire to avoid confrontation
at all costs, to give in to others
and make the world smooth out right
so people will like me

We share a love of animals
waffles smothered in maple syrup
and after many years, at last,
a joy of reading
but politics and religion
often reside in opposite corners
of our universes

I’ve been told I shouldn’t let it matter
yet how can I not wonder
about my genetic inheritance?

People don’t realize
how much it matters to a child
to know where they came from,
to contemplate what bits of nature might
have shaped the person they’ve become
even if where they came from
wasn’t a very nice place.

It’s the difference between walking gingerly through life
unsure when you are on solid ground
and marching forward with confidence
that you can take whatever the world
decides to throw your way.

@copyright Susan Taylor Brown 2010
All Rights Reserved