Uncle EniGMA

My Uncle Warren was a rabbit hole of a man
Full of seep dark secrets of which were unspoken
Questions about him gleaned no family answers
Eighty two he died alone in a rundown plantation mansion
Out of curiosity I went to the funeral: No one else was there
Well apart from the old priest and a grave digger bent over his spade
I couldn't help but notice the grave diggers dirty craggy grin
And the old priest smelling of bathtub gin
Pulpit pronouncements, life style denouncements
Prayers for the dead's unlikely salvation
The grave digger's grin turned to sniggering
There's something wrong is what I was figuring
At the rickety mansion like an unkept hairstyle
Four servants on the stoop were here to greet me
All of them happy and wanting to meet me
Not allowed to go to visit the dead
But only because all four were black
In the parlor we had home made lemonade and stories,
Remembrances, tributes and stories of "Mr Warren"
"He done never beat us even when plates were broke"
A kind man never mean or cruel, slow to anger
"We was faithful to Mr Warren, until the lord took him"
The will read by a dusty old lawyer wearing spectacles
He had left me the house and one hundred thousand
Nothing to his faithful old servants, they accepted with grace
Against this white southern lawyer's advice
I signed all of it over to the faithful four
It was not what my uncle would have wanted
But it should have been Uncle Warren's last wish


#TSElliot

Poem: Aunt Helen by T. S. Eliot