What They Left Behind

I don't know their names

Yet they are still with me

Their impact is more

Than I can ever see

They are from whom I came

Their time is my preamble

Like waves beating on a shore

The world's scars show their example

Of what to do and of what not to

The sacrifices that are worthy

And the sins that cost dearly

That they have made upon their journey.

They live on in our books

Yet lie dead in their graves

Far beneath their children's world

That bad tried to poisoned and the good tried to save.

Their languages are our words

Their skill is our art

Their towns became our cities

And their end signals our start.

For the dead are our mentors

Both the evil and the kind

Their wars, their sins, their heroes

The lessons they left behind.