URHEIMAT and JEDERMANN

Being a poli-ethnic migrant
I sometimes surf the Internet,
in search of my family’s Urheimat.

I have a passport, though rather out of date,
and a formal document that says that I am
a naturalized citizen of a modern nation state.
Yet that says nothing of my ethnic roots,
which are a tangled hybrid tree.

My surname won’t help me,
which in this case, before 1612
could have been Polish or East Prussian,
Dutch, German, Czech or Hungarian –
some within and some beyond the Pale –
a name floating along rivers –
Danube, Rhine, Elbe.

If you knew my surname
it would only give a minor clue,
for genetics and human migration
has more say here than any appellation.
And to make the search more fun,
the root word for my surname
from Koine Greek comes

But nothing scatters people like war
and persecution.

So, add to these –
long migrations through Celtic lands,
and all that mitochondrial DNA slowly
filtering out other, older genes.
And all those Welsh and Scots-Irish brides
so eagerly included in my line
came from ethnic stock
that may have wandered west
from ancient Anatolia it seems.
And not to forget additions
less spoken of a’foretimes –
of other peoples melted in along the way,
of ethnicities very far removed
from anything near Budapest
or Inverness.

Being a poli-ethnic migrant
I sometimes surf the Internet,
in search of my family’s Urheimat,
only to be convinced that
I am really very fortunate to be a blend
of colours, cultures, languages;
and can call all the Earth my home.