.................................
List do Pani Agnieszki
.................................

Droga Pani Agnieszko,

Troche dziwnie, a troche przyjemnie pisac do Pani w jezyku ... to write to you in a language in which I neither curse, nor count, nor even dream anymore. And yet, my meanderings in your enchanted gardens sent echoes through my body that made me wake up at 2:30 in the morning, to write this letter.

Do you think it was because both of us, born in a small, poor, many times enslaved and war ravaged country, are now living in this huge, opulent home of Lady Liberty, fighting its battles on other lands?

Or could it be because both of us are filled to the brim with poems?

On my desk lies the November issue of Smithsonian Magazine, open to a color photograph of Nowy Swiat - the street of the New World - in Warsaw, the City that would not die. At Nowy Swiat #36 I was born, at #8 -- married the first time.

I have walked this street many times, in snow, in the rain and in the sunshine, when all these prettily restored houses were either a pile of rubble, gutted by fire, or just front walls, richly pockmarked with shrapnel.

I have no idea why I am telling you all this, and crying.

Perhaps because at the corner of Nowy Swiat and Foksal big bunches of white and purple lilacs were sold every spring, as they are again, among this reconstructed splendor.

Z serdecznymi pozdrowieniami,

Izabel Sonia Ganz (PhD)
(nee Zofia Teresa Lubowicka)

 
.................................
Lilacs and Roses, 1944
.................................

The wheels of the train beat staccato
my heart kept in tact,
faster, faster, faster...
Light in your eyes shone recognition:
"we have met at Yourek's house, remember?"
The wheels of the train beat triumphant
my heart still kept speeding
its loud drumming.

Lilacs were in bloom everywhere
white and purple, like grapes
hanging in bunches.
The smell of the lilacs was everywhere.
We held hands walking from the station.

I can remember the coat you were wearing
It would be called a car coat
in this country.
Nobody we knew owned a car then,
roar of cars meant German soldiers
or Gestapo.

You came walking for miles as I waited
we would sit on the porch,
hands holding,
talk of books, friends,
plans for peacetime
as the city's rubble
smouldered in the distance.

And then we kissed.
Small, sweet kisses,
smelling of lilacs.

For all this time the lilacs were bursting
like ripe fruit hanging off the branches.
Once you found a bloom with five petals:
"for good luck" you said,
"for both of us".

Then came summer.

One day you were very late coming
you did not come at all as I waited.
The cook who always kept watch
said: "don't worry,
maybe he just couldn't make it".

Your brother came one evening
with a strange face
brought a book and a very short letter.
It was too late
to send you an answer.

Your mother found my picture
in your wallet,
the one you took
when we played volleyball,
she placed it on your chest
as the earth received you
with a bunch of red and white roses.

You see, it was already
much too late for white lilacs.

.................................
Izabel Sonia Ganz
.................................

 
Copyright © Izabel Sonia Ganz
December 1997

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Copyright © 1997 A Small Garlic Press. All rights reserved.
Created 1997/6/3. Updated last on 2000/7/17.