Strange sounds in the African night
Wake me from a tourist’s sleep
And stir in me an urge
Too dangerous for my modern mind
To name aloud.
In the morning, Muzi, my new Zulu friend, challenges me.
He says, but Chrissy, what do your ancestors have to say about it?
And, after a moment of confusion,
I answer him – in a tone I immediately regret –
I say,
How do you expect me to know
What my ancestors have to say?
Then, in a kinder manner I continue
Look here, I say – pointing to my family tree
Look at the pale white bark
And long spindly branches.
Do you see how my single leaf – out here on the farthest limb –
Is a lifetime away from the leaves of my ancestors?
And do you notice
How the sun-hot African wind that now rustles my leaf
Does not even move the leaf of my furthest ancestor
On the other side of my family tree?
And because of this
I am now
And have been all my life
The master of my own fate
The decider of my own life’s meaning
I am quiet now
Having just now realized
The crux of my dilemma
And resign myself to the lonely destiny of
Of a disconnected soul
When I look at him
My new Zulu friend, Muzi,
I see only that he is smiling.
Before I can get mad, though,
He quickly says
Chrissy Chrissy Chrissy
Do you not see?
Do you not see how your single leaf,
stretched way out there on the furthest branch
Is connected to the larger branch by a stem?
And that stem is connected to the trunk?
That same trunk with the pale white bark
That holds the branches of your ancestors?
And do not you see how
When you follow your family tree’s trunk
Down into the Earth
You find there roots
Growing broad and deep
From generations of love and experience?
And do you not see
How that same Earth holds the roots
Of my family tree – and all the others?
So that, in reality,
there is not your ancestors
or my ancestors
or anyone else’s ancestors
But really
Only an Earth that holds the collective roots
Of All Our Family Trees.
