Largo Nature Preserve February 25, 2019

album

Possum Branch to John Chesnut February 25, 2019

album

traces

Coming to terms with false ideas about heredity

In my lifetime science is discovering so much

New information to process and incorporate

More than I can absorb in one reading.

Ancestry claims are basically absurd

Since if anyone today is related to someone ancient

Then everyone is also related to that progenitor

As I read the absolutely logical explanation.

Genes get diced and spliced around randomly

When eggs and sperm are formed there’s no certainty

My specific self in posterity likely disappears

Several generations hence leaving no trace.

My identity contains DNA and mitochondria

And trillions of microbes that I depend on

And all the mosaic of mutations over time

And all the ways the environment has shaped me.

My inheritance comes from our human culture

That has shaped the world we live in

All the labor of our ancestors who built up everything

Teaching us everything to begin with.

Our heritage is not all good

Eugenics remains as an undercurrent

In a time when racist ideology fuels racist acts

As if there is any pure nationality.

My daughter asks me about what I am learning

She who reminds me of her fondest memories

How I would brush her hair every day before school

A kind of intangible inheritance from childhood.

She is inheriting a world of trouble

Pollution poisoning earth, air and water

Climate change severe storms and droughts

Endless wars and widespread suffering.

She tells me she sometimes contemplates my mortality

How sad she will be when I am gone

So we make plans to get together more often

Enjoying what we have while we can.

Florida Botanical Garden February 19, 2019

album