“Roots Search”, Poem By Tom Ryan.

Poem hereunder courtesy of Thurles Author & Poet Tom Ryan ©

Roots Search

The stranger, grim-faced and zealous as a Missionary,
From another space came to discover,
In this time,
His original space,
With a pride like a child for a parent.
With eyes upon me fixed, he declared:
“All my people from this townland travelled
In the year before the famine to Australia.”
It was the surest sign of Summer,
To see him pensive there,
The headstones in the graveyard scanning,
And, assisted by the priest of the parish,
Who had his family records on computer now.
This seeker was more strange than a stranger,
In his uneasiness and uncertainty,
And his late in life zeal,
To forge a continuity,
In time and space.

END

Tom Ryan, “Iona”, Rahealty, Thurles, Co. Tipperary.