Teardrops (ancestral burdens)

Their teardrops fall onto stony ground

Not a sound to be heard

Amidst the weeping

Truths are rising like mist

Seeping into the mind

Which recognizes a truth

Only dimly sensed or felt

Before

Deep inside the body

Now I see the reason why

I was always either longing

Or leaving

As you remind me of the hugest burden

I had to carry

No wonder my body nearly shattered

Under the weight of it

Sad to see how much I blamed myself

But isn’t this the way of a child

Never helped to negotiate reality?

We must the carry the pain of our parents too

Not knowing it was never our responsibility

And yet these are the givens of this

Our earthly existence

So many lessons to be learned

So many truths to be discovered

Through both the sorrow

And the teardrops

So many ancestral burdens

To be understood

Made sense of

Shed