Member Poem

         THE CODICIL     


Wrapped in tarpaper and tied with twill,

My great-grandfather's beribboned will

Arrived one day last week by special post.

I did not know at first which I desired most:

To see his shaky signature, scrawled across the codicil page,

Or to review the aged testament

For evidence of the sorry family legend

By which he'd spurned his children's mother,

And showered the mistress of his late life

At the expense of his only-ever wife.

The paper, frail as mica, cracked at every turn.

I wondered by what birthright I had earned

This family-secret vantage point,

Me the bloodline's first and only lawyer,

Who never knew the guy,

With no real chance of discerning why

He'd thrown the whole show over

For some scarlet hussy from two bus-stops down.

I knew him only by his linotype frown.

But it seemed to me, as I reviewed that codicil,

That he’d spoken his last mind,

And while my loyalties still remained

With that bereaved and then bereft

Consanguine clan by which to him I was connected,

The way he had the last guts to act his heart,

My prodigal great - granddad, at least

Bequeathed me with an act to be respected.