Family History
My father left when I was one,
Or maybe two - I don't recall,
I have no memory of him now,
No memory then, now none at all.
It didn't seem important then
I had my mother, she had me,
And Uncle George would call each day,
Call by most nights, and stay for tea.
I wasn't even curious,
My world was perfect as it was,
We lived beside a village green
And travelled by the village bus.
Our house was large, a mansion set
In Parklands, much too large for us,
Whole wings were closed and boarded in,
My mother said, 'it makes less fuss! '
It wasn't 'til I went to school
That doubts arose about my kin,
The boys would taunt and tease me there,
Would comment on my yellow skin.
They called me 'Squinty' for my eyes,
They looked so different then, to them,
My hair was black and very straight:
'You'll never make an Englishman! '
I asked my mother why I looked
So different, just like chalk and cheese,
She smiled and held me close to her,
And said: 'Your father was Chinese! '
'I met him through your Uncle George,
They served together in some war,
He charmed me once, but then he left,
Went off to fight for Chiang-Kai-shek.'
'I thought that he'd return one day
But truth to tell, he never did,
I heard that he'd been killed before
The White Army had turned and fled.'
She mentioned words I'd never heard
'Formosa', 'Tao' and 'Mao Zedong',
'Long March', 'Red Army', words that I
Remembered when no longer young.
[...] Read more
poem by David Lewis Paget
Added by Poetry Lover
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