Ancestral Home

When my ancestral home

      was broken down

It wasn't the splintered debris

      of bricks and wood

But the white bones of ancestors

      gleaming in the sun

That dazzled and burnt the air;

      decades of dreams

Kept  falling from the blue sky

      in soft flakes of ashes.

We scattered like ants in panic                        

      flitting in all directions

Scrambling on one another

      for life  and shelter

Stunned and bewildered.

      Memories came

Spilling out like loving kindness

that we'd never thought

Were there controlling  our lives

      from far deep beneath.

When a grand ancestral home

is broken down

Something precious is dug out

      like hidden honey

That trickles into memory jars

      for ages and generations