The Book Of Shame

Many a Family Bible has at it's front
pages left blank for the family tree
where marriages births and departures
were to be listed with some pride.

When those old Bibles were regularly read,
they were read aloud so that all should hear.

But even as families heard they did not follow.

Very few of those pages for the family tree
that were ever started remained fully filled in.

Every family made it's own secrets
about which it should be ashamed
which meant pages get torn out in anger
as branches of the family tree get lopped off,
and the tree becoming progressively less complete
as the characters in it prove their lack of self control.

Thus the in/complete family tree echoes Genesis,
the book so full of murder, guilt, and lies
along with all too many narrow escapes
that it is the book on which modern life is built
such that we don't know how to behave any better.