Issue Thirty-One - Winter 2018

Farewell, My Homeland

By Anne Whitehouse

After the war, Poland’s borders shifted west.
Russia gained; the Germans were kicked out.
The few Jews who returned
were resettled in the west,
away from their homes in the east.

We were a hodge-podge community
with no shared history or connection.
When one of us met another,
the first question was,
How did you survive?
Everyone had a story,
and every story was a miracle.

Under the Communists,
it was hard to find a job,
pay was low, and there
was nothing to buy.
But my parents clung all the same,
and I was born in Poland in ’58.

In the sixties, the economy tanked.
As usual, Jews were blamed.
We were said to be a “fifth column,”
destroying society from within.
We were free to leave, and we did.
Still, my father was bitter about it.
I never knew why my parents stayed,
only why we left.

Copyright 2018 Whitehouse

Anne Whitehouse is the author of seven poetry collections, most recently Outside from the Inside (Dos Madres Press, 2020). She has also written a novel, Fall Love. Recent honors include 2018 Prize Americana for Prose, 2017 Adelaide Literary Award in Fiction, 2016 Songs of Eretz Poetry Prize, 2016 Common Good Books’ Poems of Gratitude Contest, 2016 RhymeOn! Poetry Prize, 2016 F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald Museum Poetry Prize. She lives in New York City. www.annewhitehouse.com

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