.

.

Ancestor 

 

The faded family photo
traps unsmiling Irishmen
in an amber drop of time.
A century has passed.
They are all gone, and
their children, and soon
their children’s spawn.
Among the captured,
the eyes of a stern woman
meets my curious gaze.
Face of a native
skin of a slave
enslaver’s build.
You stand before
a whitewashed home
slow changing Appalachia.
I sit with fellow spawn in
an assisted living room
while your feeble heir
gasps in her transition.
The family album
changes hands, pages turn,
passing generations.
My sister and cousin
introduce your image
a name: Lucy Dalton Cox
a word: melungeon

Lucy, from this side
of the sepia, we salute you.
Thanks for being
there and here in
an image and our genes.
Time lurches
irregular as troubled breaths
All deaths are local.

 

 

 

Copyright 2010 Fred Laughter

 

another poem