Looking Back

It was time to look back

To see what I could find

To see who I could track

With the same blood as mine

So up my family tree

I began to venture

Following each branch

Was a real adventure

Given a leg up

By my uncles and aunties

I was able to look up

The higher branches

The further I went

The harder it got

But I was hell bent

On getting to the top

But after eight generations

What finally stopped me

Was starvation

And the Irish Sea

For the potato famine

Murdered on mass

The diseased & the starving

Didn’t stand a chance

But luckily for me

Four members of my tree

Sailed across the sea

For a new life in Blighty

Three become mill workers

One had a blacksmith’s shop

For none of them were shirkers

And worked ‘til they dropped

Sixty years on

Some served in WW1

Then others in WW2

Another in Egypt

One in Malaya too

My generation next

And another war to come

Out to the Middle East

To fight the Taliban

I found many more branches

On my family tree

Way too many stories

To put to poetry