“Little Granny”

…

Trying to find you hasn’t been easy at all

there are none of your words recorded

married at fourteen your journey from Milford

carrying your first child to the places

you lived where he dug the coal

…

There are none of your words recorded

telling your story of the journey you made

you were my mothers “little granny”

I have stories but now you’re gone

a black and white foto of you standing in the doorway

….

Census records paper milestones telling a story

his occupation your age the language spoken

both of you Welsh a marriage certificate

you signed with an x the service in English

the children you brought into this world

…

There’s no headstone to tell the barest detail

your absence your lack of even a trace of a burial

of your eventual green grass paupers resting place

just a silence as if you’d never existed, never been born

a cracked black and white foto nothing less nothing more

…

©robcullen23082021