Paternal Lineage Poem by David Grzan

Harken back to time immemorial:
Your paternal lineage—stout peasant
Farmers—dwelt nigh Dalmatian pastoral
Shores, to eke out their hardscrabble pleasance.
Great-dad earned his Gotham passage stoking
Coal hoping chance stamps him a stevedore.
Grand-dad—a compelled truant suffering
A paupered regency—wrought by world war,
Made shift until his father's ship came in.
Schooled a captain's waiter, jumped ship to port
At Liberty—hence roots a citizen:
For three-score and six he fêted his forte.
Your father, first to college ere suited,
Yet your surpassings art most saluted!