Belonging       

The cry to belong reaches out to my heart

Shouting and smiling they compare face shapes and color

As they lay out a family tree that goes back generations

Never old enough to create memories of the stories

Vague recollections insufficient to create a vision.

Enough simply to create a longing

A desire to know their stories, to appear in their stories

To recognize them on the street or in a photograph.

But those that knew the faces, knew the stories are gone

A few cousins remain but we are strangers

Have always been strangers, their stories kept as if secret

Now gone.