Descending

As child raised I believed
descended From D. Boone,
through a daughter Rebecca;
an often lost man
who carved short poems
with Bowie knife in sinuous
gray bark of beech trees.

Often hungry
for words
at a distance --

As adult I find
I'm descended
from a Great Grandfather
who raped a school teacher
at Dead Man's Grove, Iowa,
not lost, not even poetic
just another horny farm boy.

][<en Follett