Family Tree

Family Tree

A whirr of sound, the disc goes in.

Colour and lights and years flash by.

I fill in my name. I fill in yours. And wait.

Who will we meet today? Where will we go?

Already we have traced people many generations ago.

Today we go further, where we do not know.

But soft, who comes thither, a shadow?

I cannot make out the shape, yet somehow it seems familiar.

‘How say you sir? What business are you about? Speak!’

I wait, screwing my eyes that peer through the mists of time to see who comes here.

“Tis I. Did you not call me? Did you not wake me from my sleep?”

‘Why, Sirrah, have patience. Good time of day to you. Are you friend or foe?”

The ghost of the past halted and surveyed me, a smile upon his lips.

“Why friend or fiend, both have I answered to. And fie upon my foes

who royally did me wrong.“

‘Speak fair, regale me with your story regal, be you King or knave?’

“I have heard both whispered in mine ears, perjury howling from reddened lips.

But melancholy is fleet and conscience temporary, hiding behind darkly looks.

God gave me good rest but restless sleep.

Now I am awakened and those who hold me dear weep,

the crowning glory, a cherished crown to keep.”

‘Marry, my Lord, say you, are you then a kinsman from the past?’

The shadow turned and laughed, not a mocking sound but a mocking bird crowned.

‘Then be it so. Most certain I courted kith and kin most nimbly at the court.

Forsooth a man, transform’d to villain by a murderous libel.”

The ghost turned and smiled and called over his shoulder,

“The sun shines again. Proclaim it down the years,

through every branch stemming from this oak –

what is done has been undone and amends mend the sorrow,

discontent affords great dignity and our name reclaimed for the morrow.”

He walked through mist, trailing beyond the fog back into the past.

‘What name shall I say? What name shall men whisper?’

As he melted away I heard him laughing, answering at last,

“Tell them – Richard.”

                                                           

A whirr of sound, the disc comes out.

Colour and lights and years flash by.


Linda Prince