Ernstine Pauline Reichardt ending in "dt"
Reichart ending in "t'
My father wrote on the back of a photo
"Richart", exposing a hidden dyslexia,
Ernstine Pauline
Did you really despise Amerika?
Did you really try to sail back to Hamburg
to its green watery parks?
Its massive port, its shipyards?
Only to die en route
To be buried at sea?
Golden hair, small toes nibbled by fish?
Amerika.
A cultural slap in your face so intense
That you just had to be shipped back home?
Slapped out to sea?
Ich habe keine Idee.
Leaving husband and children back in the New Land?
In the photograph you have a faint smile, impish eyes,
August seated at your side
Your belly corseted, but swollen
With who? Mien Großvater?
Ich habe keine Idee.
Along with your burial at sea
the invisible ancient heritage
of lost tribes
the Diaspora that may have been shown
through a sturdy wooden towel rack with two separate rungs
and ceramic oval shaped signs written in German dialect
Low German, a "strange dialect", one translator said
"Meat knife towel, cheese knife towel"
Sometimes objects
can expose the ghosts
hidden underneath our skin, hidden in our blood
that tongues never dare reveal.
By Debra Girard, July 3, 2011
Photo by Debra Girard© 2008
No comments:
Post a Comment