On finding my great-grandfather in the computer

Ohio dust and mud from Chickamauga,
lawbooks and temperance meetings: of what are we made
if not our ancestors? Hello, great grandfather,

I didn't know about you, but suddenly there you are,
in someone else's web site--fine, bony face,
dark eyes, distinguished battle record

from the Civil War.  Captain, they called you,
till the day you died, a lawyer "of high principle"--
the kind of ancestor other people fabricate.

It's fine with me that you outlived your wife,
and had a second family; and now they're claiming you.
The genes are inescapable. This great collage

of me has lots of room for you amongst the juices, pulp
and marrow, the splinters and shards of Cornwall lead
and steel mill soot.  I add the stench of powder,

of rancid battle sweat, and prohibition rant.
and thank you for the richness.  I think wherever you are,
you must be pleased to count descendents--some 400 now--

who share that DNA; who wouldn't be writing poems
if, in the bungled battle of Dyer's Field, your silver watch
did not by chance deflect the rebel minie ball.