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