Somewhere off the highway
between over there and yonder ways
stands a little church on a gravel road
that took me home in my younger days.

As you pass grandmother's old place
where my ancestors found their stead
lays Uncle Pete's house in the woods
where reunions were held to break family bread.

It was at this place our stories were shared
as one generation met the one to come after
mournful old eyes glimpsed a jovial horizon
finding condolence in the future's young laughter.

It's here I learned the history of my inherited name
as I listened to the tales that ultimately lead to me
of how I'm related to this person who begat that one
or of those who served in the wars to keep us free.

As those stories were told I often found it strange
as the storyteller's gaze traced further down the trail
to where the gravel gave way to a dirt trodden path
that cut its way through Boone's forested dale.  

Over the years I have often made this journey
out past the places of my childhood memory
down an old Kentucky road of gravel and dirt
that finds its end at our old family cemetery.

It is a place were serenity accompanies finality
a small clearing shadowed by surrounding trees
where each marble marks a loved one in peaceful rest
their names etched in stone and whispered in the breeze.

My grandmother and Uncle Pete now lie in its shade
and in their passing it's only here we meet as a family
but it's on this road that I learned who I truly am  
and at its end lies both my history and my destiny.

© Joey Jones