Knitting

Two needles with stitches of heather and gorse and clouds

A child's hat.

Not yet born, but in transit.

The mother fled from Syria to England to Turkey

England is the colour of heather and gorse and clouds.

Yet it splits the family.

I knit on.

Remembering my own family arriving dirty, dishevelled, stinking of long journeys and fish.

Heavy fur hats preserving the dignity of the past into the ridicule of the present.

My great grandmother's hands blistered as she delivered coal by wheelbarrow from house to house

Her daughter's hands blistered on the sewing kit she gained at school - not the reward for intelligence that would have set her free, but the necklace of iron keeping her poor and enslaved.

My father's soul blistered, from the chants of other children

Hating his otherness, his difference, his Yiddishkeit.

His soul blistered from rescuing his father from the pub

Where he drank to hide his otherness, his difference, his Yiddishkeit

Lest his soul blister and burst open.

A butcher needs hands that are unblistered and firm.
To prepare meat and to serve.

My soul is blistered and burst with hatred and fear.
It boils in the shtetl and burst the bridges in the ghettos

In the camp it drowns us.

I knit - heather and gorse and cloud

I pray for the next generation

I pray for peace - in heather and gorse and cloud.

Pittsburgh

Grief clinging like wet mist

Memories fogged by its presence.

White wraiths on the Tree of Life

Bird's flying at the sound of gunshot

May their memory be a blessing

Survival

As I child I learned very early on
That there is no one there.
No one came when I cried
No one came when I fell
No one came when I hurt.

You were always there, but these things were always my fault.
So clumsy! So easily upset!
Or "I know you how you feel
but my pain is MUCH, MUCH worse"
Be in thrall to me

Your illness transcends all
it's the sky of my childhood,
Everything is lived through its storms

Everyone reads the weather better than I
And blames me for not wearing a better coat
Or not knowing when to run
Or being me.

I'm tired

I'm tired of being frightened of late night phone calls
Tired of weary voices telling me you're sick, you're unwell
Tired of letters inviting me to be involved in your care
Tired of the disappointment when I can't
Tired of the relentless anger and fury
Tired of being blamed
Tired of the number of times you threatened suicide and didn't
Tired of the blood pouring out of my nose and my glasses breaking - I was 8
Tired of caring and caring and looking for love
Tired of validation through hate
Tired of seeing you piss on the bedroom floor
Tired of you hearing voices
Tired of the unending fear and suffocating protection
Tired of the hiding
Tired of the shouting and slapping
Tired of counting the days until the next assault
Tired of mapping your moods in my diary
Tired of self-protection to deflect the abuse
Tired of being resented
Tired of not being loved
Tired of being sworn at, beaten and madness
Tired of fear
Tired of hatred
Tired of you.

You were never my mother, only my jailer.
And I'm free

Yesterday's emotions have draped themselves, cloak like around my shoulders.
The material is hard and rough and scratches my skin.
Staring at the pricks of blood I see a map of grief
The continent of depression looms large
but there are islands of hope and "it's not so bad" and "shrugs"
I set sail accordingly.

Remembering the Dead.

How quickly the two worlds collide, rip asunder and we stand in the gap between now and the past.
Heads bowed we remember the dead, the suffering, the sick, the old.
In that sacred space between now and the next moment, we stand and remember.

Then, at the call of the horn, the two worlds are one again, the moment is lost and carries on
The dead are forgotten, back in the graves.
The sick are ignored, the old ones lost.
Their voices half remembered, no longer as bravery but as raised in complaint
Against the wrongs of this world.

Fascism rises

Meteorite

Falling from the sky, I hesitate to catch you.
Burning the ether, no one can miss you.
So fast, so slow, your trajectory terrifies.
I wait until you fall into my arms,
To sleep.


(Waiting for my child to be calm when in the grip of a meltdown).

Joy in small things

Joy in small things
Minute, tiny, twinkles of thought.
In structure and lines
In conversations bigger than the world
In too many things to think at once
In ordering
In beauty that strikes me to the core
Rendering me breathless with bliss
In shapes and stars and dates
In watching the breath and calming the mind
In watching the mind dance on the beauty of thought
In textures soft and smooth and fur
In music, expressing love
In happiness