Poetry

CHILDHOOD MEMORY | FROM YESTERDAYS | GESTAPO | JEWISH BED | WHY NOW

FROM YESTERDAYS
by
Suzan Herben

    Words, words everywhere
    Heard my father on the air
    Saw my father in a dream
    I awoke he wasn't real
    My heart broke.

    I cried when he died
    He had been long dying in my head
    He stopped living long ago
    Dead he looked just like grandmother.

    Grandmother took care of me
    She had a blue chamber pot
    Covered with blue flowers
    She took me down the stairs
    Away from the loud airplanes.

    Then the part I don't recall
    I won't, can't
    Think of it at all.

    Now I am
    The only one who's left,
    Abandoned for the last time.

    Where is the one
    Who gave me birth
    Her face I never see
    Didn't she care
    Why did she abandon me
    She is dead now
    Finally justified
    In ignoring me.

    December 6, 1999