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Towards the end, they both wore black only, just like you.
They both wore black for their husbands, men gone long before the women,
one went so fast I did not see him at all.
Helena was your height, wore glasses, tinted, her hair always wrapped tight
in a bun, and its length, I never knew.
Alice was taller but as time passed, her body slipped down,
lower to the ground, her back curving in on itself, unable to support a body,
even as frail as hers.
Helena was quiet, calling our names, she would go through the list
of daughters in the family, before reaching the one she wanted.
Alice commanded attention, even when her eyesight failed
and it meant reaching her bony hand out
and pulling us to her
not sure which grandchild she held onto.
Towards the end, Helena faltered, and went quiet, while my mother and I
were at the other end of the continent.
We were told days later, and I watched my mother
drop the phone, drop to the ground
and become a little girl again.
Towards the end, Alice’s sight and hearing and breathing went
in a hospital bed
surrounded by daughters, sons, grandchildren, great grandchildren,
I among them
hurting for my father, and his tears that would not fall.
I did not know either of them very well
raised far from the arms of two families
each on a different continent
and family for me
only meant a father, mother and sister
Aunts, uncles, cousins, all thousands of miles away
becoming friends and enemies only after my 18th birthday.
But you, standing in the street,
make me ache
for the grandmother
I did not have.
Chris de Bode’s multimedia project, Exodus, is a heartbreaking visual reminder of the millions of refugees in the world today. Fifteen minutes by the side of the road is condensed into just under 3 minutes, documenting 1,200 people walking by, carrying all that is left of their belongings.
We fall under
tanks that do not stop
not for screams of pain, or skin and bone
not for children or babies
old women who cannot run fast enough
to outrun
tonnes of steel
not for men who
had they turned
one degree,
would have seen
death so wide and so forceful
that there was no way to run
and hide
there are wounds that will not go away
broken bones that cannot heal
not when all that they hold
begins to fall out
and spill onto
the ground
not when a tank runs over a live body
and in 5 short seconds
what was once alive is
now
dead
we hope
because their bones
have bent in ways
we did not think possible
have cracked and proven brittle
easy to snap, to crush
like it was nothing.
Like it wasn’t a father who was dying
or a son who’s mother
would scream, hit her face, to feel pain
but feels nothing
nothing
knowing
that a tank
hundreds of thousands of pounds
of weight
fell, angonizingly slow,
covering an entire body
with its wheels.
No, bone should not break
that easily.
Hearts should not feel
cracked
like our chests have caved in
on themslves
and words come out
split in two
part word, part nothing that the human ear
can understand.
No, there are wounds here
that will never
heal
there is resolve here
that cannot be broken
the resolve of men and women
wills written
and ready
saying
we would rather die
for these streets, these cities,
these people
than to live
in ways where
life is worth
a cracked skull
under a heavy tank
and nothing
more.
