Â
cry with the ancestors long gone
     family we've never met
cry with them now as they cried then...
           stoking fires of wet wood
           mending what would not be fixed
           and burying their babies.
cry with them now as they once cried...
           in childbirth
           in war
           and in love.
laugh with them too,
     for the fever broke
     the baby lived
     and what was lost was found
           in the still morningÂ
           of yet another sunrise
           just beyond the horizon
where we nowÂ
stand.