FAMILY TREE
In Mrs. Mullin’s class
we studied genetics
and how sometimes
we turn out like our parents
because of what our
cells did and didn’t do
before we were born.
We brought in pictures
and made charts about
the color of our eyes
and the color of our hair.
Kyle Williams had red
hair and his mom and his dad
and his two brothers
and his aunt Agie
all had red hair too.
For the last assignment
we made trees as tall as we were
out of brown paper bags
and taped them to the wall.
Then we cut leaves out of
green construction paper and
wrote names on every leaf
about who we were
and who are parents were
and where we came from.
Kyle had so many red-headed
relatives he needed extra leaves
for his tree.
Day after day
leaves filled the trees
telling the names of people
and where they were born
going back farther and farther
until there were so many leaves on the walls of the room
that it looked like spring had just burst out
right in the middle of our class.
My tree was lopsided.
The left side, my mom’s side,
had lots of leaves,
so many you could barely see the wall behind them.
But the right side of the tree had just two,
my father’s name,
my grandmother’s name.
No birthdays.
No birthplace.
No more branches on the family tree.
On back-to-school night
while the parents oohed and aahed
over the forest of families
I stood with my back against the wall
my head tucked up
under the leaf with my father’s name
and pretended
I had nothing to hide.
@copyright Susan Taylor Brown 2010
All Rights Reserved
I know teachers often struggle with holidays like mothers day and fathers day — and apparently even genetics lessons, and you show why. What a powerful ending. I love the way your poems often do that, ending with power and an echo.
Thank you, Jeannine. I’m actually looking forward to the end of the month when I can take all these first draft poems and go through them again, hopefully polishing them even more.
Wow, I love this! Like Jeannine said, the ending is so powerful — I kept reading and reading to see what would happen, and then, it went straight to the heart. This HAS to be a book. There are so many kids who need to read this.
Thank you, Jama. I’m playing with some titles for a book idea now. (I can’t think of it as an actual book project without a title.) I think the big problem right now is trying to decide if it should be a story, in which case I need a story arc, or a collection of poems.
Heartrending. Good use of tree, branch and leaf metaphor. I hope teachers find some other way to teach genetics to children.
Thank you. I hope they do too. It was painful!
I really felt for you and for all kids for whom projects like this are a struggle when I read your poem.
I liked the line, “Kyle had so many red-headed
relatives he needed extra leaves for his tree,” too.
Thanks, Jeni. Any of these sorts of projects were always so tough for me.
tanita says:
…and this is why, when I was teaching, that I didn’t do family trees. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt. Many African American families have trouble going back more than two generations… and if your Dad was illegitimate…?
Re: tanita says:
Good for you not forcing students to do such a thing, Tanita. And yes, what if your Dad was illegitimate? The whole thing was a giant FAIL to me and just made me feel even more inadequate than I already did.