Just Folks

I am like him, so they say,

   Who was dead before I came.

Cheeks and mouth and eyes of gray

   Have been fashioned much the same.

I am like her, so they say,

   Who was dead ere I was born,

And I walk the self-same way

   On the paths her feet have worn.

There is that within my face

   And the way I hold my head

Which seems strangely to replace

   Those who long have joined the dead.

Thus across the distance far

   In the body housing me

Both my great-grandparents are

   Kept alive in memory.

Edgar A. Guest 1934