half a world away they're lighting
candles twenty thousand across Tallinn Tartu Pärnu
one for each Estonian manwomanchild 25 March 1949 deported to Siberia
on You Tube, colour images of multiplying number of candles clash
against bleached out sepia shots of gridded track lines smoking trains
deportation lists with double vowel surnames you recognise but wish you didn't
Johannes went in an earlier 'wave' but there's something about candles
bursting out light flashing across the sepia news reels saying
we remember you we have little left your photograph the last
heavily photocopied letter from Siberia what can you write
you miss your family love them you want your son, my uncle
to be strong to look after the family what can you write
there's a certain weight crushing down the Nordic gloom
can you cut it out surgically remove it, attack the heartstrings with serrated knives?
you listen to the testimony with tenses, changing in every line:
people get tired there was no food
they dropped he crawled around a frozen person
looks awful
you know how a person crawls like this
then they brought him back he was white and dead
and white and
From the Gulags some returned
their families say they were: "not the same"
I like that turn of phrase but never the weight
of living with it that one letter what can you write
one remaining photograph a memory you start to think you made up
the ones who didn't make it back were left to
wrestle tangle bargain with the heaviness crushing inwards,
eating away at their inner organs savagely
how does a person crawl I don't want to ask
can burning a candle achieve anything
was Hitler right when he said I don't want to say
the Russians were sub-human I told you I didn't want to say it
can anything melt through the strains of Sybelius and Dvorák
political cynicism melancholia hardened beyond .... words? poetry?
concrete slabs that featured somewhere in the family history
maybe I should delete them
Kurat: first Estonian swear word I learnt this was meant to be a quick post
Damn it half a lifetime world countries removed the lines I falter over languish
awkwardly in a foreign tongue uncomfortably long they chatter
amongst themselves in the wrong places they wrestle with questions about candles
and symbolism what sort of person Johannes was how different life, everything, madness
would have been had he lived can darkness ever be a beautiful space
how do you translate "not the same"
from Siberia what can you write
just throw me the Redheads and I'll light the bloody candle
lest we forget
ReplyDeleteThat's right Kit - lest we forget... Very hard to write on this sort of thing and avoid clichés!
ReplyDeleteSo powerful. What happened. Stories told. How tales work. Brought closer so we can smell and touch it.
ReplyDeleteThanks Rob - appreciate your response about the re-telling of history and stories being brought 'alive' - even when they're dealing with tragic deaths...
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