I'm serious, I swear.

I just posted two poems about farts and ancestors. They are actually the same poem, I am just still trying to decide which version is better.

But I am very serious about these fart poems! They have great meaning to me, and I have just enough pride to feel compelled to explain.

Over the past few years I have felt a growing measure of the spirit of Elijah, who is meant to "turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers." In suppose it is expected that, as a new father, I feel my heart turn to the children. But I have also found myself becoming fascinated with all the billions of people who lived before me.

I think living abroad has taught me something of how different people from a foreign country can be. Humor is different, relationships are different, values are different. I made some wonderful friends in India, but it took time and effort to understand each other and get used to the differences. For example, Indians don't think my puns are very funny, and they would probably be appalled by how infrequently I hug my mother.

But living and serving in India also taught me that there is always common ground. People like to sing, people like to dance, people tell jokes, people make friends. And just to be fair, people gossip, people make enemies, people try to find happiness but screw it all up and can't tell how. 

When Emily and I were dating we went to a screening of  Werner Herzog's documentary about the Chauvet cave that holds the oldest-known cave paintings in the world. It has stuck with me partly because Werner Herzog has a funny voice, but also because the film captured so intensely the eerie feeling of familiarity the paintings evoke. The paintings are over 20,000 years old -- more foreign than anything I can imagine -- and yet I feel like I understand them perfectly. I instantly recognize the animals, and would draw them almost exactly the same way. I recognize the awe of nature and the desire to record it. I recognize the desire to make marks on rock. At least I think I do.

The Kendall square T stop houses one of my favorite Boston sights. On the inbound side of the tracks an old hole has been covered up with a piece of plywood, which in turn has been covered in pen and marker graffiti. I love the graffiti because it is so mundane. There are lovers' names, little jokes, some guy writing his stupid nickname for himself everywhere, someone claiming to be Obama, complaints about Asians at MIT, and some Korean and Arabic phrases I can't read. I have barely any idea what anything means even when I can read it. It's the collected half-thoughts of a people scrawled quickly but permanently on a wall.

But what I really love about the Kendall square graffiti board is how similar it is to ancient Roman graffiti. If you were to take that Pompeii graffiti and change the names, make the translation a bit more crass, and remove some references to Greek gods it would be indistinguishable from a modern toilet stall or Facebook wall. It's all about girlfriends, grudges, and simply making markings on things.

So what would I say to my (great)^n grandfather? Even if we could speak the same language we would have different cultures, different ideas about friendship, different ideas about humor, love, and family. And yet, I'm pretty sure we'd both laugh at a good fart joke.