Catherine Fisher: Great-grandmother

You are the furthest back.
Your name tops the family tree,
marks the end of mythology.
On the dusty trail of documents
only two snapped twigs show where you passed.
Two thin lines crossing, a crooked X
that promises, and denies,
and underneath the slightly disapproving
"Hannah O'Connor-- her mark."
Your fingers, work-worn, awkward,
unused to the pen's slim fluency;
my eyes, tired after searches,
swooping on the long-sought prey--
our blood's intersection, our crossroads,
our moment of meeting.
You are the begetter of history.
Behind you, like a shadow
Ireland rises
--famine, kings, Tara, Newgrange--
--all my Dark Ages.

       --Catherine Fisher (b 1957) in Welsh Women's Poetry 1460-2001: An Anthology