“The fires of our ancestors burn within our very bodies now.”
Jessica Marie Baumgartner

I am an American.
I am the daughter
Of immigrants
And natives, who
Science tells us
Were immigrants as well.
The blood of both nobility
And peasantry
Runs deep within me,
The Irish and Scots,
French, German,
and Norse,
And the genes of
The Cherokee and
The Great Iroquois Nation
All are in my DNA.
My ancestors were
Cowards and warriors,
Farmers who tilled
And miners who mined
Our Mother Earth,
Adventurers and merchants who
Sailed her temperamental seas,
Slave owners, abolitionists
Suffragettes and male supremacists,
Both right wingers
And left wingers,
Penitents who worshiped
The Judaeo-Christian God,
Pagans who revered
A pantheon of Natural ones,
And I'm sure there were even a few
Who didn't believe at all.
They were the best and the worst
That humanity has offered
And they have all come down
To who I am,
Who I was,
And who I'm going to be.
I am a melting pot.
I am an American Woman.

c. 2024