Enjoy!
Wanting Poland
by carolyn kieber grady
stirred by a rhythm of wheels on rails
mesmerized by flashes of Poland
before the euro
land of family farms
one or two dairy cows tied
down with chain and stake
fenced plots in community gardens
left by Soviet workers
flowering lilies
lavender lungwort violets
run-down stations
poppies punctuating weeds
little red exclamation marks in wild fields
and along the tracks
starry ox-eye daisies march leaf to leaf
at times the past painfully whirrs
this land resisted
monarchy
created the “free and equal” nobility
a parliament presaging
values now held in the western world
the world that has held me
for so long
trying to come out of my stupor
I touch my lineage
a genealogy stretching beyond
simple genetics
in a rickety first-class compartment
I drink to the Medieval Noble’s toast:
“Let us love one another”
I am America but
I no longer feel like a foreigner
as Zubrówka vodka
distilled with the heady buffalo grass
from the Bialowieza forest
sinks into my bones
liquid fire burns sip after sensual sip
my heart splits
wooden grain of tracks ring
into light and longing
connecting with my ghosts
and my grandmothers’ ghosts
the heartland of a feral country
humming
wanting to sing but not knowing
the words to the song
mile after alien mile
gazing out the stuck window
into recognition of parallel lives
the Polonaise mesmerizes
the triple meter resonating
lifts my impoverished spirit
wandering north
half-lost in Malbork
a thirteenth-century monastery
built by crusading knights
strong enough to defend against
any invader crazy enough to scale the thick brick
everywhere iron gates
and grace
here lay impenetrable
whose heart do I defend
and what am I protecting
dropping the warrior stance
I rest against the fortress
faint from the heat of the day
momentarily wiser and wordless
carrying bags heavy with the cargo of the free world
the old totalitarian regime has fallen
I try harder to draw
the landscape inside of me
sweet benediction
for the first time I smile
there are no worries in this world
drawn to Czestochowa
Jasna Gora — the Bright Hill
the Black Madonna’s eyes
sad for centuries
her wounds unhealing
the Mother knew what was to come
she weeps and weeps
at Mass I kneel
beside girls in Communion dresses
and moms with orange tipped hair
familiar prayers in a language
I don’t really understand
I cross myself
buy another elm wood rosary
count the decades and ask for help
I say another Hail Mary
finger wooden beads like a gypsy’s worn lamp
and find my way into this continent of hope
pushing from the green oceans
a heavy door cracks open
into a dim castle cafe
candle flames’ shadows play on walls
hungry again I order
borscht, pierogies, zywiec
satisfying
in the way food or a country can be
when prepared with care
entering steep Southern hills
I float beneath clouds on the Dunajec River
in a hundred year old raft
through a granite gorge etched with eagle wings
my flimsy umbrella pops open
rain batters and rocks
forcefully I swallow fear:
there is another country
I want to speak this religion
share my gods
perhaps then this aching
would soften
a world would begin boundary-less
the spirits of the past slip into this future
the stories of this country
mirror mine
always the same:
wanting wanting
~ for David Citino (1947-2005)
