Ancestors on My Tongue

We watched the inauguration on TV at lunch today. During the recitation of the inaugural poem, Gloria caught me checking my tongue for ancestors when poet Elizabeth Alexander said they were there. I couldn't help it. And I'm sure I'm not the only one on the planet who stuck out her tongue today to see if there were little people walking to and fro. Or dancing. Gloria was sure the poet said they were dancing.

I really wanted Mike to sketch this vision for me, but he spent the lunch hour in his truck eating egg rolls and reading a book. That could easily have been me eight years ago. I don't recall.

The whole thing distracted me so much I waited all day for the text of the poem to post somewhere so I could read it from start to finish and really pay attention. I found it on the International Herald Tribune site:

http://www.iht.com/articles/2009/01/20/america/20textpoem.php

(Funny. I don't recall the ancestors reference being so early on.)

I've now finished reading Praise Song for the Day. I hear it a little differently in my head than the way it was recited earlier today. I'm still processing the pieces and parts, but I like it in general. I especially like the line "In today's sharp sparkle, this winter air, anything can be made, any sentence begun." That matches the theme of this presidency, doesn't it? Hope and possibility. Change for the better. I like that a lot.

So about those ancestors. I actually have been thinking about them, so perhaps they are indeed on my tongue - dancing or otherwise occupied.

I could swear I've been told I'm descended from Declaration of Independence signer John Hancock's brother - also named John. My maternal great grandmother was a Hancock. But now I'm going to have to do some serious research because I'm not finding any information about brother John and this connection. Yep, I must not have enough other responsibilities, because I sure can find the time to run down this rabbit trail. Yessiree. Here I was so smugly thinking about good old great-to-the-nth-power Uncle John during the inaugural hoopla and I may not even be able to make this pseudo-historically significant claim anymore! Sigh.

Well, my paternal great great grandmother was Julia A. Moore - the "Sweet Singer of Michigan," probably best known for her notoriously bad poetry. I do know that for sure. I have a lot of respect for Julia. She may have written some really (I hesitate to call it "bad") stuff, but she wrote very interesting, heartfelt obituaries. And she was disciplined with her craft, writing steadily and even supporting her family of 12 (great great grandpa Fred plus 10 kids) for a period of time.

I read on Wikipedia that Julia was an inspiration to Ogden Nash, and The Oxford Companion to American Literature even says Nash used her "hyperdithyrambic meters, pseudo-poetic inversions, gangling asymmetrical lines, extremely pat or elaborately inexact rimes, parenthetical dissertations, and unexpected puns." Well, that's kind of cool.

Ancestors ... each one of them on our tongues. I know it's not about me - or at least not about me alone. But today is a fine day to think of those who went before. Imagining their hopes and dreams. Contemplating their struggles. The sentences they began. The words they left behind.

Hey, Gloria - I can see them dancing, too.