Last train to Moscow
Elena,a baby wrapped in her woollen clothes,
On the last train,Warsaw to Moscow,
[ change Niegoreloje.]
1939.Father,mother,brother
You passed through the Arctic Wastes of life.
Still as if travellng on a train
To an impossibly far destination.
As you left the German Army crashed into Poland
Lost,your aunts
Your cousins.
Your culture.
How does God select the damned?
Later,you had your own baby,here in England,
Not lost like all those others.
Your father died by his own hand,
The hand of history;
The fingers twitching,
Not sure where to point.
Then settling into frozen grief
A sculpture only your mother saw.
You saw too,Elena.
You always saw,though you can’t remember;
The long journey,your mother’s breast,
Your father’s silence.
Only the dead know that silence.
Only the dead weep
With the rocks and stones .
And the ice in each eye
Fell like snow down your cheeks
As you held your own infant.
Warsaw to Moscow,
Moscow to Jerusalem.
Always journeying
Looking for what they can never find:
The home they left behind
The presence of the dead
Lying in gaunt heaps
Like rubbish
Your aunts, Elena.
Your cousins.
You never knew them.
But there’s a hole in your mind
Through which the Polish wind blows for ever.
-
- Writekate's blog
- Login or register to post comments
- 213 reads
Lessons of the Heart
Kate,
As strange as it seems, I used to yawn in history class as a child. I did not relate.
Today, I read, "Last Train to Moscow" and related. You tackled your point-of-view about Poland in 1939 with the light of Elena, the torch bearer.
It is hard to realize that 1/5th of Poland's Jewish population was killed by the Germans in the time frame of your historical poem. It makes me sick, and I cry out for all the dammed, the unforgivable loss, we remember today.
When I was 15 years old, around 1966, I took a train ride into Berlin. We passed through communist Germany, and it was very frightening. Elena's train ride reminded me of my train ride. I am not Jewish, and as an American teenager I was protected. However, I saw things many have not seen. Big mirrors were passed under the train, and German soldiers walked the tracks to assure no one was trying to escape from East Germany. Everyone was armed and did not smile.
Our heritage is a part of us. I am part German, and for the pain and evil of World War II, I cry. I can remember seeing things in Germany that I did not understand: bunkers, thousands of bones, skulls, relics of war. The German woman and man that owned the apartment my family lived in, lost their daughter, a child, in this war.
I was bored in history class as a child, that is so sad. My teachers should have made these acts of terror as real as the acts of terror that live today. Yes, children deserve fantasy, but brutal reality is what shapes our hearts.
I love your poem and sense that you knew this family. My prayers and thoughts are with you. Yes, there is a great hole where humanity has killed God's spirit.
We are all on the journey to Jerusalem. Our paths, they cross, and for this I am most grateful.
All my love,
Kathy
Dallas, Texas
Someone I knew
Dear Kathy
Thank you for your response.This is based on someone I once knew...all I reallly knew was it was the last train out..After many years I began thinking of her and looked up the trains of that time on a website here.
I know it's really hard to know how a so called civilised Europe coucld have become such a place of wickedness and murder.
Sometimes we have to write about things we'd prefer to forget.And of course the problems in the Middle East mean all these things come back again.We lost so many people with gifts and possibilities in this madness.,
Your journey sounds quite scary...
I suppose this has been on my mind since I was a child and began to learn of WW2
Yes,history can be dull.I gave it up at 15 but have got into it since then in historical novels..
Memory is also fascinating.
Thanks gain for your always generous comments
Love and best wishes,Kate
So moving
Hi Kate,
I always read everything you post.
I found this poem especially moving,
I will be thinking about it all day.
\\John
Hard
Dear John
Thank you for reading my poems.i apprreciate that.
I think this one quite hard to read.I wrote it partly because I knew someone to whom this happened and it often came to my mind.I had to look up the route on the Internet.I hope it gives is insight into the p light of people more recently losing their homes and friends.I suppose Elena was luckier than many [that is not her real name]
Thank you again
Kate