Ukrainian Refugees. Photo Credit: BuzzFeed News
Grief Runs Untamed
In one hand the exiles hold a bundle
with a blanket, medicine, and a comb;
in the other, a door handle.
They attach it to every mountain and wall,
hoping the handle will conjure the door
that will open and let them in.
Through the swamps, down the dirt roads,
through the frigid water the exiles go,
knowing they shall never return.
In their former homes, if there are still homes,
the wind wails. Spiders weave
their shrouds over the cupboards and beds.
Cats, left behind, wait to be scratched under their chins;
a dog smells the scarf a young girl dropped
and barks on the cellar stairs.
Near the road thousands took to flee,
a carcass of a cow still tied to the olive tree,
abandoned like their tea sets and pots.
A widow with children runs from the Guatemalan gangs.
Newlyweds from Syria huddle in a dinghy
in the Mediterranean, their wedding rings sold
to help pay the way. A couple from Sudan
limp along on the scorched ground with their epileptic son.
Those who survive and settle in a new place
sometimes dream at night of returning
by foot to their native homes.
When they wake up, they have blisters on their feet.
Agnieszka Tworek fromThe Sun, November, 2017
This morning I began my day by reading the Rattle’s Poets Respond Sunday poem that used the biblical story of Cain and Abel as a frame to write indirectly about the war in Ukraine. It was by a Polish American writer, Agnieszka Tworek. The poem captivated me enough I began to look for other poems by Agnieszka on-line. I thought I could find one to feature in a blog post and include her Sunday Poem as an add-on since it has already flooded email boxes today! Well, I hit the jackpot, I think! I found her poem above from the American publication The Sun in 2017. How she uses her words and images to cast a spell of the “isness” of the refugee experience she describes. You will see this again in her Rattle poem below: Abel’s Last Words to Cain.
That first stanza of Agnieszka’s poem, with the brilliant and unexpected image/metaphor of the door handle, riveted me. Talk about surprise, always so important in a poem. I think her first six lines are as fine as the best poetic openings I have come across.
In one hand the exiles hold a bundle
with a blanket, medicine, and a comb;
in the other, a door handle.
They attach it to every mountain and wall,
hoping the handle will conjure the door
that will open and let them in.
These six lines would make a fine poem just as they are. Oh my. Oh my. These six lines leave a huge door open for our imaginations to walk through. And while I do like the whole poem I thinks its most surprising and unexpected moments take place in that first stanza and the last one.
Those who survive and settle in a new place
sometimes dream at night of returning
by foot to their native homes.
When they wake up, they have blisters on their feet.
That last line, especially, captures something of the agony of a refugee or immigrant in a way that only a great line could. I do like how she adds authentic images of the refugee experience in the three middle stanzas and how she makes the experience universal by adding in references to Syria, Guatamala and Sudan. Today she could add Ukraine.
It is not surprising to me that Agnieszka’s poem feels so authentic. She knows the immigrant experience. She was born and raised in Poland and then moved to the United States at age eighteen and now lives in Vermont. She studied at the University of Chicago and received her Ph.D in French from Yale . She lives in Vermont She Her poetry has appeared in Ploughshares, The Sun, and The Best American Poetry 2018 and Rattle on-line!
And now, Agnieszka’s poem published on-line this morning in Poets Respond. So many lyric moments that jump out of this poem. She shows again her ability to bring a freshness to her lines with unexpected images and turns of phrase.
ABEL’S LAST WORDS TO CAIN
A sparrow from my orchard
flew by your house
as you gunned me down
Brother, why do you sow
my frozen fields
with copper and lead?
What can sprout in spring
from these bullet seeds?
In this black soil I grow wheat
I could bake you such a crusty loaf of bread
Why do my fruit trees have combat wounds?
Why do my sheep and cows lay dead?
Why do women weave the sky’s threads
and use them as gauze bandages?
Brother, you could still bring me back
to life to love to light
if you don’t bomb the hospital
where my pregnant wife prays
that our newborn son’s first cry
won’t be his last
Why is the snow falling
into my mouth
and why is it red?
Brother, you could
still
Agnieszka Tworek from Rattle—Poets Respond, March 13, 2022
Each day of this senseless war brings new atrocities. There are many innocent civilians dead—men, women, and children who cannot be properly buried. This week the world witnessed in horror the Russian soldiers bombing Ukrainian hospitals, including a maternity and children’s hospital. There are no words …—Agnieszka Tworek.
These lines grab me, not just because of the strong metaphors but also because of the way she sandwiches the normal wholesome images of Ukraine’s rich earth and bread made from its wheat between the destructives images of war that are so perverting what Ukraine was before this atrocious and inhumane war.
Brother, why do you sow
my frozen fields
with copper and lead?
What can sprout in spring
from these bullet seeds?
In this black soil I grow wheat
I could bake you such a crusty loaf of bread
Why do my fruit trees have combat wounds?
Why do my sheep and cows lay dead?
Why do women weave the sky’s threads
and use them as gauze bandages?
Since Ukraine and Russia are brother (sister) countries and in many places the Russian and Ukrainian languages exist side by side that striking question at the beginning of the lines above floors me: Brother, why do you sow/ my frozen fields/ with copper and lead?
I was not able to garner any recent information, or pictures of Agnieszka, on-line. But I do hope we will will hear and see more of her and her poetry in the years to come.