I ussually don't do to much poetry...but this one is special to me...

 As I was cleaning Ifound this book, moldy and what not it had fallen to the floor, and laid there slowly going to ruin...this poem is by Sara Teasdale, not an well known person I guess we can thank "London" for her 1907 copyright date. she was to contempary for her time and era I think. born in 1884, in St. Louis, Missouri, her family was of New England stock and pure Englsih Colonial stock as well. She went to an girl's school founded by T. S. Eliot's grandfather, from then on she went about writing poetry, traveling the world over, and trying to find herself more or less. She at one time had an magazine, and noriety amoung the well known writers of her day, she then published an collection of her poems, and in 1933 died from an over dose of sleeping pills. i twas thought no by accident. Her collections are quite large, and I came across this book in of all things an specialty coffee shop one time, (way before Starbucks was ever thought up) where they had poetry for their patrons to read as they sipped on an bit of hot steamy brew, and you could buy the book, so I bought it. thsi is an favorite poem to me for some reason, just kind of resonates with my days of genealogical work in part. Thought I'd better get this down before it "molds" away into the future.       ................... Driftwood.....

 My forefathers gave me...My spirit's shaken flame...The shape of hands,.... the beat of heart,...The letters of my name.

But it was my lovers,...And not my sleeping sires,....Who gave the flame its changeful...and Iridescent fires.

As the driftwood burning,...Learned it's jewelled blaze,...From the sea's blue splendor..Of colored nights and days.

Very beautiful, and a bit sad, Shirley.  Thanks for posting it.

Beautiful Shirley. Thanks for sharing.