Generations

Two generations of people,
That I remember well.
Three generations that follow me,
Of which...I like to tell.

My generation adds up the sum,
Of six generations in all.
I know the ways that each one lived,
And their ways I can recall.

By my own eyes...I see,
The year that they can trace.
With progression rising up,
And great changes taking place.

Crude were the ways of long ago,
How learning does achieve.
What people were...and what they become,
I can hardly yet believe.

If by going back a hundred generations,
And the knowledge of that time could bring.
The cave-man living in his ignorance,
Would be in ways...a natural thing.

E.P. 1908 - 1989