Passing It On (or Genesis 5 Revisited), by Claire Booker

Cueva de los Manos (Argentina) c. 7,000 BC

Passing It On (or Genesis 5 Revisited)                                       
 
My mother received hers
from my grandmother, who received hers
from Mama Eyrole, who received hers
from the Count’s illegitimate daughter, who received hers
from the pretty laundress, who received hers
from the 12 year old wife of a wheelwright, who received hers 
from one unbroken relay of mitochondrial DNA   
with a starting block 5,000 generations back 
to a line of fleet-footed daughters
rooting seven branches of Europe on African savannah –
Jasmine, Tara, Ursula, Helena, 
Katrine, Velda and Xenia – who received theirs 
from the great untoppled matriarch.
 
My hand still holds their traces
in faint outline –
like a prehistoric palm-print of blown ochre.

Claire Booker
​
​Claire Booker lives near Brighton on the south coast of England. Her poems have been set to music, filmed, displayed on Guernsey buses and Worthing Pier, published in magazines including Ambit, Magma, the Rialto and Stand. Her work has been twice nominated for Forward Best Individual Poem, and for a Pushcart. Two of her poems were performed simultaneously at six venues (in Scotland, England and Portugal) as part of The Solstice Shorts Festival. Her first collection, inspired by the South Downs National Park, is A Pocketful of Chalk and available from Arachne Press. Her pamphlets are The Bone That Sang (Indigo Dreams) and Later There Will Be Postcards (Green Bottle Press). More info at www.bookerplays.co.uk