TEARS IN KRAKOW

A selection from The Sun Loves Every Planet

We stood at the airport

Knowing

The moment was near

That I would fly away

And we would never

See each other again

 

Your face

The image of you waving goodbye

Tears flowing down your cheeks

As I turned to look at you

One last time

Languishes in my memory

The way only foreign things can

The pain of leaving a place

You know you can never fully understand

As an outsider

And yet  

It is somehow part of me now

Comes to me in dreams

I am sorry

That we are from such different worlds

So far in culture and time

Worlds we couldn’t bridge

No matter how hard we tried

When I first arrived in Krakow

And saw you waiting for me

Your face looked so happy and alive

So anxious to start our new life together

You looked so beautiful

I couldn’t keep my hands away

From your warm ones in the cab

It felt so good to be with you again

On the other side of the ocean

After the lonely, rainy nights of Seattle

Our hopes faded soon

I’m sorry for that

But not before

We learned so much from each other

Which others can never understand

Unless they know what it means

To be torn between two worlds

Sometimes when I’m alone

A memory passes through me

I see us standing on a hill

Overlooking Przemysl

The sun is going down

The river looks distant

Your father is lighting candles

And placing flowers

On your mother’s grave

We watch in silence

I didn’t know her

She died before we met

But I felt her absence too

A vague feeling

That something was missing

She was there and yet she wasn’t

She was everywhere I looked

And yet she was gone

Like those years that were ours

But are no longer

Her death

Was never spoken about directly

As most painful things are not

But, I knew that your hearts were good

When I watched your father dance

In a Russian way

That I sensed was very old

Passed down through the ages

By a hard, tough people

Whose dreams

Never really seem to come true

But keep on living anyway

I know it was hard for you

Listening to all the people in town

Wondering who the American was

The way they would stare

When we walked by

The news it gave the neighbors

To gossip about

And your father to worry about

As he worked in his garden

Sometimes I still hear their voices

Speaking words I don’t understand

When someone asks me

What I’m thinking about

I answer

“Oh, nothing”

I don’t have the heart to tell them

Nor the words to describe

The look I saw on your face

That day at the airport

The rivers of emotion

In your eyes

The pain of wanting it to be different

The sadness of what could have been

But never was

Our plans to go to Italy

For the summer

Quickly fell by the wayside

But just thinking about it was good

It gave me such a tremendous feeling

As I walked to the school I taught at

To find eager faces waiting for me

There were times when I thought

Maybe we can make it work

If we don’t give up

If we keep trying

We’ll find a way to stay together

Like when I would drive

Narrow, winding streets

And you would give me directions

Reading the signs

For my foreign eyes

As we drove past

Castles and fortresses

On cobblestone roads

Where the buildings are old

And dirty from coal

Layer upon layer

Century upon century

Restoring each other

As they fade further into the past

I liked it when you were happy

But it hurt me deeply to see you sad

Caught between your father

And what he expected of you

And what I needed from you

There’s a loneliness that settles on you

When you’re in a different country

A loneliness that never goes away

You try to make it work

You try everything

You can possibly think of

But, it isn’t home

Your family isn’t there

So, when you get a letter

From your own country

Perhaps not even from someone special

But a letter from home

In your own language

How much it can do

For a sad heart

That feels displaced

I remember looking out the window

Just before spring arrived

The wind was blowing from the east

It’s fury shaking the windows

As I stood alone

In the cold, drafty stairwell

Watching snow fall

Until everything was white

I can’t really put it in words

But as I watched the chimney smoke

Rise through the air

I felt further away from everything

At that moment

Than I have ever felt before

A few weeks later

The snow melted

The rains came

Trees blossomed

And flowers bloomed

The streets filled with people

Life felt new again

Before long

The trains from Russia

Didn’t seem in such a hurry