That Formal Address
Thank You Kate for this track to Australian Poem Writer with Polish roots. It is amazing how quickly – within one generation – we can change our language and stop to understand the culture of our parents.
On Yesterday’s night or maybe I should say today’s morning? Anyway, at around 04.00AM of New Year’s Day we were returning from Darling Harbour Party by train. Trains were overcrowded and going very slowly and I had time to observe one older couple in her mid-50s. I wanted so much to catch any word from their talk. They look like a good example of Polish people of post-war generation. On 2009 we are going to have 20th anniversary of what happened in 1989 – my parents together with million of other exhausted and worn-out Polish people gathered together and started to change my country. We introduced to Eastern Europe a communism-free political system. Life under regime was hard but period of transformation asked for a lot of sacrifice too. Our standard diet consists of bread and flour-based meals. My grandma used to prepare amounts of pierogi or bigos in a big pot so that it could be quickly warmed up during the next week. There was always lack of time and that is why we still have bad eating habits. And in addition alcohol was the thing to be consumed very often. This couple looked like my parents: worn-out, tired, wrinkled, flour white and thick skin. And unfortunately they didn’t exchange any word between each other within this long hour of trip. Only at the moment the husband started to snore his wife gave him immediately a strong punch into his down rib :) and it was also a very Polish way of tenderness :).
Let me paste a nice part of Peter Skrzynecki’s poem. Poems have so much more of capacity and describe much more effectively our feelings. It fits to this unknown and possibly Polish man on the train very well too :)
"...My gentle father Kept pace only with the Joneses Of his own mind’s making –Loved his garden like an only child, Spent years walking its perimeter From sunrise to sleep. Alert, brisk and silent, He swept its pathsTen times around the world.
Hands darkened From cement, fingers with cracks Like the sods he broke,I often wondered how he existed On five or six hours’ sleep each night –Why his arms didn’t fall off From the soil he turnedAnd tobacco he rolled.
His Polish friends Always shook hands too violently,I thought… Feliks Skrzynecki, That formal address I never got used to. Talking, they reminisced About farms where paddocks flowered With corn and wheat, Horses they bred, pigs They were skilled in slaughtering. Five years of forced labour in Germany Did not dull the softness of his blue eyes…."
On Yesterday’s night or maybe I should say today’s morning? Anyway, at around 04.00AM of New Year’s Day we were returning from Darling Harbour Party by train. Trains were overcrowded and going very slowly and I had time to observe one older couple in her mid-50s. I wanted so much to catch any word from their talk. They look like a good example of Polish people of post-war generation. On 2009 we are going to have 20th anniversary of what happened in 1989 – my parents together with million of other exhausted and worn-out Polish people gathered together and started to change my country. We introduced to Eastern Europe a communism-free political system. Life under regime was hard but period of transformation asked for a lot of sacrifice too. Our standard diet consists of bread and flour-based meals. My grandma used to prepare amounts of pierogi or bigos in a big pot so that it could be quickly warmed up during the next week. There was always lack of time and that is why we still have bad eating habits. And in addition alcohol was the thing to be consumed very often. This couple looked like my parents: worn-out, tired, wrinkled, flour white and thick skin. And unfortunately they didn’t exchange any word between each other within this long hour of trip. Only at the moment the husband started to snore his wife gave him immediately a strong punch into his down rib :) and it was also a very Polish way of tenderness :).
Let me paste a nice part of Peter Skrzynecki’s poem. Poems have so much more of capacity and describe much more effectively our feelings. It fits to this unknown and possibly Polish man on the train very well too :)
"...My gentle father Kept pace only with the Joneses Of his own mind’s making –Loved his garden like an only child, Spent years walking its perimeter From sunrise to sleep. Alert, brisk and silent, He swept its pathsTen times around the world.
Hands darkened From cement, fingers with cracks Like the sods he broke,I often wondered how he existed On five or six hours’ sleep each night –Why his arms didn’t fall off From the soil he turnedAnd tobacco he rolled.
His Polish friends Always shook hands too violently,I thought… Feliks Skrzynecki, That formal address I never got used to. Talking, they reminisced About farms where paddocks flowered With corn and wheat, Horses they bred, pigs They were skilled in slaughtering. Five years of forced labour in Germany Did not dull the softness of his blue eyes…."
Comments
Post a Comment