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| Alfred von Wierusz-Kowalski - In a Polish Village - 24.227 - Museum of Fine Arts |
Grudnow
by Linda Pastan
When he spoke of where he came from,
my grandfather could have been
clearing his throat
of that name, that town
sometimes Poland, sometimes Russia
the borders pencilled in
with a hand as shaky as his.
I understood what he meant
when I saw the photograph
of his people standing
against a landscape emptied
of crops and trees, scraped raw
by winter. Everything
was in sepia, as if the brown earth
had stained the faces,
had even stained the air.
I would have died there, I think
in childhood maybe
of some fever,
my face pressed for warmth
against a cow with flanks
like those of the great aunts
in the picture. Or later
I would have died of history
like the others, who dug
their stubborn heels into the earth,
heels as hard as the heels
of the bread my grandfather tore
from the loaf at supper. He always
sipped his tea through a cube of sugar
clenched in his teeth, the way
he sipped his life here, noisily,
through all he remembered
that might have been sweet in Grudnow.
From: Eternal Light: Grandparent Poems, A Twentieth-Century Selection, edited by Jason Shinder, Harcourt Brace, 1995.
The year was 1911. I envision my mother, only 3 years old, clutching her little brother's hand tightly, looking up in awe at the huge ship that would take them to their new home in America. I have often wondered about that time in my family's life. I wonder about my grandfather, leaving behind everything that he knew in that little Polish village; my grandmother, then 35 years old (3 years older than her husband) taking her 4 young children, with a 5th one on the way, on a long voyage to an unknown place and both of them saying goodbye to loved ones for the last time, ever.
They had to have good reasons to leave and hopes for better things ahead. What they would have is 11 children altogether, seven children born in America, (the last one when Grandma was 46 years old) challenges of language and customs and neighbors that would mock their religion. They would see their eldest son lose his leg to a farm accident and have it amputated on the dining room table. They would send 4 sons to war, they would take in my mother after she lost her young husband. Grandpa would lose part of his ear in an accident. They would never own their own land, but they would also have joy.
I love spending time with my Schoenack family. There is a vivid streak of fun and good humor that has been passed down through the generations that is almost a tangible presence. The storytelling can last for hours.
I never knew my grandparents. I was born when my mother was 42. By that time, Grandma had been gone for 4 years and Grandpa would die in 1951, when I was a baby, too young to remember him. I have no idea if the poem I'm sharing today reflects any of their actual thoughts or experiences, but at least one line is clearly resonant..."that town, sometimes Poland, sometimes Russia, the borders pencilled in with a hand as shaky as his..."
My mother talked about leaving Germany, but her village is now in Poland. The ship manifest states that they embarked from Prussia. They came from a land marked by political turmoil, both when they left, and periodically, for decades after. It is the ordinary people who pay the price of this turmoil, whether they leave or stay. It is a steep price and right now, the Ukrainian people are paying with their lives. How we need these stories of humble people to remind us to work for peace in anyway we can.
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