Today at the YMCA gym, E. introduced himself to us on the basis of the White Beard Connection. We had a long talk about life, and Hungary where he spent half his life, coming here with little English and getting a job as wheelchair/gurney pusher in a hospital. His brother was a high-wire acrobat and went back to Hungary where his line of work was more plentiful.
Thinking about this part of Europe and thus about wars, which have been so plentiful there (wars of which we are now more conscious again in these very peculiar times) reminded me of this powerful poem by Jean Pedrick, one of the founding women of Alice James Books (look it up!) If she were still among us, I think she would have been marching last week.
Marija Says
Grandmother said, they come from the east.oday
on horses. Watch the plain there
for the long cloud, thicker than smoke.
Hide what you can, potatoes, turnips,
anything that will keep, nothing to call
the bees. Then filthen and uglify yourself.
Roll with the swine until you retch, I beg you.
Mother said, they come from the north
like giant insects, beetlebacks on the feet
of millipedes. Whatever obstructs, they mount
and topple.When the ground shakes, when the crows
scatter, do everything she said. The food. The pigs.
They came from the sky. The pig exploded.
I was pasted with it. Even so, grew up, grew old.
Jean Pedrick
Mitteleuropa; poems,
Small Poetry Press, Pleasant Hill, CA,1992, page 9.
