“Bloodline”

c. 2025 Rod Ice

All rights reserved

(6-25)

 

 

Indian Billy Iaac

A name that has endured long past his physical self

The cause of volumes on my bookshelf

And dreams that I cannot explain

Though our family tag has been revised

Made easier for those speaking English

To recognize

It remains intact

I often think of his story

When writing chapters of my own

A naïve, newspaper hack

With an ink ribbon, colored black

At the typewriter with ambition and skills

Craving to be filled

With lessons learned through nights at my father’s desk

When he was busy elsewhere

I knew so little

Yet with courage, I tapped at those keys

Fingers searching

My wrists, gangly and lurching

Arched with the childish ignorance of a student

Eager to learn, but undisciplined and shrill

It made the process harder to instill

But perhaps, a touch of magic kept me right

Courageous in a cocoon of night

I wanted to follow in the footsteps

Of my sire

One who spoke of farm living

And chicken wire

Gardens budding in warmer days

To feed the brood that his folk had raised

One of seven he was

The generations I could not number

Though imagination caused me to put doubts asunder

And peck away at the keys

Something in that cleansing act

Lyrically matter-of-fact

Dependably brought relief

But there was another path I wished to tread

Another lane I chose, instead

One more challenging and mystical to behold

Circumscribed during days of old

When our story had not yet been told

That of the captive, William Galloway

His followers in the genetic line

Owe a debt to be paid over time

Step by step, word by word

An unflagging spirit, brave and easily heard

Until the hourglass has run out of sand

And the young child made possible by a distant man

Takes a final breath

And closes the circle

The loam reclaims what it’s caretakers begat

And we are joined in eternity

United in naught

That I know is the eventual route

And an existence beyond the veil

If one is to believe the tales

Told in church

Those truths underpin my mind with sturdy clay

As does the lineage of yesterday

It makes me whole

A wine of fermented self

Dribbling down sides of the bowl

I hope that were he to peer over the edge of heaven

He might receive a glimpse of what the bloodline has become

And proudly surmise

That the youngest of his tribe

Is worthy

Dabbling in arts given as a gift

Blood and dirt and sweat and spit

From a garden seed, grown

To take up his journey through the hills, toward home

This is my calling

I am blessed to be here