Just Folks

     I am like him, so they say,
     Who was dead before I came.
     Cheeks and mouth and eyes of gray
     Have been fashioned much the same.

     I am like her, so they say,
     Who was dead ere I was born,
     And I walk the self-same way
     On the paths her feet have worn.

     There is that within my face
     And the way I hold my head
     Which seems strangely to replace
     Those who long have joined the dead.

     Thus across the distance far
     In the body housing me
     Both my great-grandparents are
     Kept alive in memory.

     Edgar A. Guest 1934