Sometimes I fear,
When looking up
At the leaves of my family tree
If I'll be just like them
As time unfurls me.

I wouldn't mind so much
If I was like my father,
A dry, cracked sun
Barely there but still attached,
Staying long after the strongest gusts.

My mother fell off
And was raked up,
So I'm not sure what kind she is.

My new mother is an oak branch
Grafted to a birch tree -
It's not always easy
To support what she gives, wants -
We aren't people of substance,
But with her we might just be.

I'm scared I'm like my sisters,
Full of holes and layered in eggs,
Shiny maggot pearls waiting to devour them
Until they are nothing more than outlines
Of something once green.

I was my brother once,
A bud adored by those who see him,
And unnoticed by the bees.

Walking in the damp wood
I see forests of families.
None like mine, yet I can't tell any apart;
For all have broken branches, buds,
Green, golden, dead leaves.  

Yet I know the shadow enveloping me
Has been cast by my own family tree.