The pale scholar,
young and fresh,
sat alone
when sunlight filtered down the hall
and hit his grandfather’s fingerprints
molded into the plaster wall.

Long before he had lain
hewed log upon stone.
Guiding palms,
made rough by sickle and scythe,
slid across the home
where his ghost still sleeps.

Possessed by his mark,
the child stayed awake,
hunched with protractor and lead,
to trace the roots of those long dead.

As he slipped into sleep.
Vesta began to softly speak,

As if twisting in the breeze,
she spoke
Of noble soldiers and condottiers slashing crude swords-
“Killers of men
are what you are from.”
Of poor tillers and toilers on foreign fields-
“Broken and beaten,
as you will become.”
Of connections formed and family lost,
of me and my place-
“Your little more
than what’s come before.”

He awoke in the morning
and scribed what was said.
Then he followed the roots down
to their bottomless ends.
In time he learned they could trap him
inside with the dead.

The scholar took stock
and picked up some scrapings,
left the idols and pictures on the mantel to stay.

Time took the house
and unhinged the door.
Outside he turned tan and gray
and bore sons that loved him someday.