Cigarette butts, envelope seals and used serviettes
Cigarette butts, envelope seals and used serviettes
(how they found DNA to track down 39 living relatives of Hitler)
You may have heard
that two scientists
have used
cigarette butts, envelope seals and used serviettes
to prove
the existence of 39 living relatives
of Hitler
It captures the attention doesn’t it
even the imagination
cigarette butts, envelope seals and used serviettes
it could be an episode of NCIS
or the lyrics
of a Leonard Cohen song
I may be naïve
but I’m not sure why they have to find them
these 39
all of whom, I think
have changed their name
most of whom, I imagine
if they know their lineage
are just trying to live their lives
quietly, seriously, with as little pain as possible
and if they don’t
well …
… they are probably doing just the same
Did you know that Hitler
was ashamed of the mental illness
that ran in his family?
It was one of the reasons he never had children
He did not want to leave that legacy behind
He preferred
a different legacy
of a new world order
kind
But little did he know
that from his lips
in his tongue’s lick
from his mouth’s spit
he was leaving behind
a trail
to stretch his sticky history
on
through years
over time
to these guilty? innocent? implicated?
39
How many of us
are leaving traces
of guilt
remnants of shame
littered through the city
disappearing into the streets
of our lives
adding to the pile
of ever growing
refuse and rotting rubbish
that makes up the story
of humanity so far
That also
we hope
and sometimes can see
is the fertilizer
for the tiniest of seeds
a new way of living
new hope for being
that comes
maybe not from a DNA hunting party
following evil
and hoping in some way
this proof will stop it
but hope that comes
from looking at what
we do
and how
and who we do it to
and seeing what is there
on the cigarette butts and envelope seals and used serviettes
we all leave behind