Ust’-Ishim Never Died
(for the forgotten father whose blood whispers through the roots)
They said he left no sons.
They said his line broke
in the snow.
A fossil,
a relic,
a man made of silence
and silt.
But they were wrong.
His blood did not end—
it scattered.
In the skin of the Jarawa,
the breath of the Onge,
the ocean-lashed memory
of the Maori
who sing to stars he never saw.
In the rice fields of Sylhet,
in the humid air of Chhattisgarh,
in the hills of Kosipe
and the quiet pulse
of Bengal’s southeast winds—
he is there.
Not in names.
Not in monuments.
But in the curve of cheekbones,
the rhythm of lungs,
the echoes of ancestors
that genetics can no longer deny.
They mapped his bones.
We carry his breath.
And though his footsteps
left no road,
his dust built continents.
Ust’-Ishim never died.
He became
everyone
no one could explain.