My great-grandfather Thomas John Kennedy published a book of poems in 1949. In 2014 his daughter (my great-aunt) Margaret’s daughter Peggy gave me her grandfather’s (Tom’s) copy (as noted in faint pencil on page 2 of the PDF included below) .
The day Peggy gave me his book she also handed down a few other items – like the egg cup Tom would eat his soft boiled egg out of every day.
In gratitude that day I wrote a poem for Peggy:
Your Book of Poems
I was given your book of poems today.
Asked to borrow but instead made owner.
Handed down to the next generation of you.
It was a known but unseen family treasure.
Until today when your daughter’s daughter
Placed in your son’s son’s daughter’s hands
Your thirty-two years of effort and wisdom wrapped in poems
Fit into five and one half by ten inches
and one hundred eighteen aging pages.
In my youth I saw five copied pages,
which were all too soon misplaced.
It took twenty more years to feel the compulsion
to see the book, touch it, read it.
To know the depths of your wisdom,
through a one-way conversation.
Perhaps because I had my own daughter
And could see the clock of life ticking
another generation.
And the risk of losing the last tangible piece of you
into the unbound pages of history
Save for that shelf in the Library of Congress
that holds one of three other known copies.
I was given your book of poems today
and after each page breathes its life
into the hands and eyes of another generation
it will sit, in a place of honor,
behind closed glass doors
and wait.
Until your son’s son’s daughter’s daughter
is ready to know her great-great-grandfather
just as your great-granddaughter
Finally got to know a part of you.
I recently discovered a nifty phone feature on Google Drive where you can hold your camera up to a page and it can scan the text and turn it into a PDF. So I was able to preserve his book digitally and share it with you all now.
I can see myself in him in many ways — like my love of writing poetry, watching birds, and knowing that I mostly write my blog posts for myself. To paraphrase my great-grandfather: “I don’t expect many to be read, but I’m happy to have it published.”
So download the PDF and enjoy some wisdom, observations, and insights from a simple man who often let his mind wander to loftier heights than the tracks laid in front of him.
Give God Your Yes 