My grandfather Ralph Harlow
whom I loved when I was little
even more I think than my own father
was proud
perhaps inordinately
of his New England ancestry
and took me once
when I was six or seven
to see the Harlow house in Plymouth
built they say in 1677
by our supposed ancestor
Sergeant William Harlow
on that excursion
the only thing of interest
was a turtle I discovered
in a pool nearby
too deep for me to reach
I can still see it clearly
lying on the bottom
its head pulled partway back
into its seagreen shell
waiting patiently