Shoveling

I don't know if I believe
in the validity of genetic memory
but shoveling the walk after a heavy snow fall
as I have done countless times
as all my Midwestern forebears have done
back a century and more
and countless more before that
in various snowy villages of Scandinavia
and frozen forest bound towns in Germania
the packing, pushing, scraping, breaking, heaving
of that cold white freeze is as familiar
to my muscled frame as walking
as intimate as a breathless waltz
so simple yet so correct for me
in this time and this place
I resonate, echo, back and back
connecting with my past

although I doubt
my great-grandfather Mart
had an ergonomic shovel