Dear Mom

In the mirror
I see flashes of you.
You were young, once,
And beautiful.
Then you were my age.
At thirty-eight
You already had six children.





In the mirror
I see flashes of you
When the sun strikes
My made-up face
And shadows the lines,
The pores,
The pouches of extra flesh
Dragging my face
Toward the earth.





In the mirror
I see flashes of you.
I am aging, mother.
And you won't see me.

March 25, 1996
from journal entry dated January 26, 1995

My Grandfather

Curt Albert Walter
had almost no hair.
And almost no genius.
Except the ability
to make a comfortable living
as a banker
and to remain gentle
amidst the war.
And to choose a wife
of exceedingly strong will and character
to lead them to safety
through the mud
and winter cold
and danger zones.



January, 1996

My Mother

Marriage

to a man who placed her
on a pedestal --
in a glass box
whose key only he possessed --
must have seemed to her
a haven
a place with thorns among the roses
and only a small price to pay
compared to
fearing for her life in Nazi Germany
where her mother's mysterious heritage
COULD have been construed as "undesirable"
and the whole family whisked away
like so many others ...

Or compared to
running away from the advancing Russian army
on foot
across Czechoslovakia
where German citizenship put her at risk,
a despised refugee ....

In a world, formerly comfortable
and privileged,
now torn by guns
and bombs
and hate ... a world of fear,
mortal danger,
deprivation, scarcity, and
uncertainty,

perhaps

the fact that her rescuer
was also her jailer
seemed only a small price to pay
for security.



January 11, 1996
from journal entry dated October 31, 1995