"Blood Is Thick," Said My Cousin Arnold"

...And I answer: Because blood is precious, more precious than gold and diamonds. Because blood is one: a pool of life dispersed among us in separate existences, but belonging by nature together: lent, not given: held in common, in trust, to be preserved: seeming to live in us, but only seeming, for in truth we live in it.......J.M. Coetzee in Age of Iron

February 2, 2003

The cousins came. We shoveled the earth
the ashes-to-ashes dust-to-dust fat-nourished earth
of the old Jewish cemetery

Seven astronauts fell to earth.
And my brother fell into the earth.

I grieve for the blood of my brother; we were as one.
sharing habits, tics, the ways we walk and talk
the balding of our heads. They used to say we look alike
I said, God help us both.

And my blood flows into the earth

We grieve for the the seven
brothers, sisters
our blood falls onto the earth.

Blood is one.

.......................................................... Israel Lewis

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