Three Ancestries of Contributory Lineage

The body of the poetry
Is all the true poet there is,

Not the person who composed, but
The persona who emerges.

Yes, there was a person, and yes
That body contributed much.

The person is one ancestry,
Never an insignificance,

Even if often entirely,
Or nearly so, invisible,

But never the totality.
How could it be? We are the words.

We had our own lineages
Before the fed flesh came to light,

External to biography,
If blended by persons as poems.

And then there is the ancestry
Older than the persons or words,

The lineage of lives living,
Poetry’s deepest groundwater

And the darkest, sweetest, coldest
Informer of inspiration.

What are poets then but patterns,
Twisted lines, insignificant,

But here, distinct, and unbroken
So far? The bodies have spoken.