Ancestry -- what counts

Etheridge Knight began writing poetry while an inmate at the Indiana State Prison and published his first collection, Poems from Prison, in 1968.  His poem "The Idea of Ancestry" shows us what a man in prison finds time to count:

   The Idea of Ancestry   by Etheridge Knight

          1
  
   Taped to the wall of my cell are 47 pictures: 47 black
   faces: my father, mother, grandmothers (1 dead), grand-
   fathers (both dead), brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts,
   cousins (1st and 2nd), nieces, and nephews. They stare
   across the space at me sprawling on my bunk. I know
   their dark eyes, they know mine. I know their style,
   they know mine. I am all of them, they are all of me;
   they are farmers, I am a thief, I am me, they are thee.

   I have at one time or another been in love with my mother,
   1 grandmother, 2 sisters, 2 aunts (1 went to the asylum),
   and 5 cousins. I am now in love with a 7-yr-old niece
   (she sends me letters in large block print, and
   her picture is the only one that smiles at me).

   I have the same name as 1 grandfather, 3 cousins, 3 nephews,
   and 1 uncle. The uncle disappeared when he was 15, just took
   off and caught a freight (they say). He's discussed each year
   when the family has a reunion, he causes uneasiness in
   the clan, he is an empty space. My father's mother, who is 93
   and who keeps the Family Bible with everbody's birth dates
   (and death dates) in it, always mentions him. There is no
   place in her Bible for "whereabouts unknown."

          2

   Each fall the graves of my grandfathers call me, the brown
   hills and red gullies of mississippi send out their electric
   messages, galvanizing my genes. Last yr/like a salmon quitting
   the cold ocean-leaping and bucking up his birth stream/I
   hitchhiked my way from LA with 16 caps in my pocket and a
   monkey on my back. And I almost kicked it with the kinfolks.
   I walked barefooted in my grandmother's backyard/I smelled the old
   land and the woods/I sipped cornwhiskey from fruit jars with the men/
   I flirted with the women/I had a ball till the caps ran out
   and my habit came down. That night I looked at my grandmother
   and split/my guts were screaming for junk/but I was almost
   contented/I had almost caught up with me.
   (The next day in Memphis I cracked a croaker's crib for a fix.)

   This yr there is a gray stone wall damming my stream, and when
   the falling leaves stir my genes, I pace my cell or flop on my bunk
   and stare at 47 black faces across the space. I am all of them,
   they are all of me, I am me, they are thee, and I have no children
   to float in the space between.

"The Idea of Ancestry" is taken from The Essential Etheridge Knight, by Etheridge Knight, ©1986.  All rights are controlled by the University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, PA  15260.  Used by permission of the University of Pittsburgh Press.