I saw my ancestors today

Just as Michelangelo revealed David
By taking away the stone
That was not the mythic youth,
My ancestors were revealed by my haircutter

I am neither David nor mythic
But, as the shears reduced
My cephalo-hirsuteness to the barest minimum,
I discerned, suddenly, in my reflection,
My cheeks shaven, head now shorn, costume covered,
Faces from many places and times ...

The broad forehead of my father,
Given by his Dutch ancestors in Nieuw Amsterdam

The heavy, dark eyebrows
Of a Persian invader of Hellenic lands

The cheekbones and curved nose
Of the Turk who fought and loved
In the lowlands of the Peloponnesus

The wide-set eyes
I imagine from the mountains
Above Sparta where my mother's ancestors dwelled

The firm chin, again from father
Who so resembled van Beethoven in his and their mid-life --
And again the Dutch

And Uncle Harry, Haralambos, as he aged,
His neck wrinkling and sagging
Below his otherwise youthful Greek countenance

And Grampa, the peasant
Whose face was ever heart warm,
Though he be care-worn

And the other grandfather whom I never knew,
But whose pictures show the antithesis of Grampa--
Elegant, prideful, erect and on-stage,
A self-aware leader of the Greek-American community ...

I have his wavy hair!

11/01/2002

Posted on 11/01/2002
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