Looking Back


My own goals have changed, along with the passing years,
To quietly just dealing with, all those dreaded awful fears.
Not fears about the future, and not of being all alone,
But do I still have the time, before the day I'm gone.
I have found some comfort, in a most unlikely place,
Where records do abound, but there seldom is a face,
Standing all together, but yet each lying all alone,
My kin seem to call me, from beneath the standing stones
Dusty records do I search for, for each one in his place,
Hoping that just somehow, each footstep I might trace,
My roots are deeply planted, in a soil from far away,
My hope is but to glean it, from the stories of their day
To find out all about them, from each record that I find,
The story of their lives, in all but a forgotten time.
Old photographs of them, cracked and worn from years,
Knowing of their passing, but not shedding any tears
Their faces stare out at me, from a time long gone bye,
In photographs time faded, but all with familiar eyes
Places that I've heard of, or I have sometimes been,
All these folks were strangers, but I know they are my kin.
Yet many still elude me, old records of them are few,
And when I can not find them,then just what shall I do
So that they are not forgotten, for their history is my past.
Each record that I find, is a memory that will last.
I am not the first to do this, I have just begun to carry on,
This family tradition that I too, will someday pass again along
From me to my own children, then from them to theirs and theirs,
I hope that you are reading this, after the passage of many years,


Ray Ward 2004