Pale winter sun slants off granite marked white shrouded graves
A century of snows has covered and recovered the memory of these Irish Palatine pioneers.
Snow conceals memories...of black clothed figures huddling together on Limerick's Custom House Quay...
waving goodbyes, receding gradually...losing shape, fading finally into the grey of an April morning
fading like the country itself beyond Kilrush, blending gradually into the meaningless horizon
between sea and sky and then suddenly disappearing...forever
Snow conceals memories of memories...
of stories told round turf fires at Courtmatrix
of ancestors pilgrimaging down the mighty many castled Rhine hoping for the Promised Land.
More recent memories of themselves four generations later
in North Atlanic trusting equally the seamanship of Captain Timothy Gorman of Kilrush
and the power of Almighty God in Heaven praying together Wesley's words:
Lord, when winds and seas obey
Guide us through the watery way,
in the hollow of thy hand
Hide, and bring us safe to land.
Snow conceals memories of clearing Huron Tract farms, chopping sawing, burning,
the frenzy to free enough soil for next spring's planting
frantically cleaning all vegatation from the gentle swells of land near Fish Creek.
Memories of horses foaming with sweat labouring into the slush of black flies, mosquitoes
spring crops of burdock and thistle and mud roads,
fringed in Queen Anne's Lace
of thumps of flails on granary floors,
soap, syrup and cider making, vegetable garden with enough food for two winters
the raising of cabins and barns.
Strong young men and fertile women, giving birth in as regular pattern as the animals they raised.
The longitude and latitude of their universe meeting
at junction of the town line the Fourth Line of Blanshard...Kirkton.
Switzers, Sparlings, Shiers, Doupe's, Brethours
They rest now, these builders of Ontario on a soft rise of ground
at quiet cross-roads a mile from the village.
Their graves, their memories
shrouded in purest white
Dear Ancestor"
By: Author Unknown
Your tombstone stands among the rest;
Neglected and alone.
The name and date are chiseled out
On polished, marbled stone.
It reaches out to all who care
It is too late to mourn.
You did not know that I exist
You died and I was born.
Yet each of us are cells of you
In flesh, in blood, in bone.
Our blood contracts and beats a pulse
Entirely not our own.
Dear Ancestor, the place you filled
One hundred years ago
Spreads out among the ones you left
Who would have loved you so.
I wonder if you lived and loved,
I wonder if you knew
That someday I would find this spot,
And come to visit you
