Past-Present-Future, Time Traveller

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

I can be whimsical, even quirky in some poems. Some readers enjoy this, some hate it while it would appear that yet others can even feel inspired.

Today’s poem has not appeared on the blog since 2008. I have been asked to repeat it by ‘Angela’ who has been in touch to say, ‘...it inspired [me] to start tracing [my] family tree, with such amazing results that I am now passionately into genealogy.’

Good luck with that, Angela.

PAST-PRESENT-FUTURE, TIME TRAVELLER

One day I visited a churchyard
looking for a gravestone;
I found it, but only after hours
foraging among weeds;
I knelt down and cleared away
years of moss and grime;
in time, I could even make out
a legend, dates, a name

I felt cold, cheated, no feelings
of compassion for the dead;
here lay a total stranger, albeit
of my family line (so what?);
it filled a box on the family tree;
the rest, but photographs,
letters, and a diary with pages
faded or missing

I’d found what I was looking for
so why linger there?
I tried to leave. My legs refused
to do as I wanted;
I couldn’t move, even after a few
conspiratorial drops of rain;
then the stone opened like a door,
and I needed no telling

I entered, began feeling my way
along a gloomy tunnel;
in a light at the end stood a man,
his features obscured;
as I closed in, he spoke. I strained
to hear a choked voice
saying it was ages since anyone
had sought him out

He said I had the family likeness
and it meant a lot to see;
then he was gone and I was left
staring at a gravestone;
that day I visited a churchyard
looking for family,
I found it, and was infinitely
glad I’d come

Copyright R. N. Taber 2008