In Love and War

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber

“Who else speaks for the Family of Man? They are in tune and step with constellations of universal law.“ - Carl Sandberg 

“The same spirits which make a white man drunk, make a black man drunk too.  Indeed, in this I can find proof of my identity with the Family of Man.” – Frederick Douglass

“We all carry inside us people who came before us.” – Liam Callanan

“[On speaking of family secrets:] I don’t know how you heal a wound and not let it get some air.”- Barbara Neely

“There’s always another story. There’s more than meets the eye.” – W. H. Auden

The poem below relates to  a friend's  complaining about an elderly maiden aunt’s dour disposition. “She has as much sensibility as a cadaver,” he would say. A few days after the same maiden aunt’s funeral some years ago, my friend visited me to share the contents of a bundle of letters found tucked away at the bottom of a trunk in the old lady’s attic. They inspired an insatiable interest in genealogy that led my friend, several years later, to track down and surrender the letters to the very love child to which they refer.

Now, I loved my maternal grandparents, but never thought of them as extraordinary in any way until my mother told me how her father had deserted the Royal Navy during the war and joined the army under another name. A family secret, indeed, only revealed when my parents decided to marry. Only then were they told that they were not only the offspring of old family friends, but also first cousins...

IN LOVE AND WAR

Clearing out the attic
after a maiden aunt’s funeral,
found a cardboard box,
tied with string, under a pile
of old newspapers,
a bunch of letters inside,
a war diary of sorts, glanced 
at one, soon reading on more attentively,
reworking my family history

Love letters, exchanged
between a dour, but near relation 
and Joe, an army private;
outpourings of passion and desire
addressing such fears
as have accompanied wars 
for centuries, all the tenderness 
and poetry of lovers among war’s horrors,
dreaming of kinder tomorrows

One letter revealed
a pregnancy, the language of love
excelling, shared hopes
shining through every war-torn page,
littered with crossings-out,
and underlines highly charged
with mixed feelings,
every heartbeat, a near-miss bomb exploding,
love’s defences notwithstanding

Later letters voiced
a birth and death, victims of war, 
messengers of love, hope 
and peace, meaningless to a mother
made to give up her daughter
to a better life than she could offer,
give mind-body-spirit
a fighting chance to discover Happy-ever-After
amongst the aftermath of war

Finally, a faded photo 
of a woman to whom her family
only rarely referred,
a family of which both she and I share
a past-present-future 
beyond a dusty death among archives
testifying to the lives 
of ill-fated lovers this mad, mad, mad world over,
Family of Man, deserving better

Copyright R. N. Taber 2022 

[Note: Useful UK) websites:  https://www.sog.org.uk (Society of Genealogists)   https://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/things-to-do/history-and-heritage/london-metropolitan-archives  (London Metropolitan Archives]