We wonder that we live and draw breath,
Given our ancestors often faced death
Before finding a suitor with which to be,
And grow more branches on our family tree.

We think of our present, an individual thing,
But us to the world, family history did bring,
And that, dear friend, is quite simply, chance
From hormone’s whim, and the mating dance.

But if a precursor’s eye hadn’t its gleam,
Or another lost through damp of a dream,
Or a single progenitor just not in the mood,
Our germ line severed — Oh my, how rude!
Our place’d be held by a different soul,
And we’d be in life’s fabric an invisible hole.

So whatever the circumstance or social event,
We’re glad that together our ancestors went,
Across the generations of joy and pain
Made possible our node on life’s linked chain.

Backtrack your genealogy however far,
For ancestral coupling thank your lucky star
That your germ alone each time did survive,
For that’s the reason you’re now alive!