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Sometimes the wind touches me with familiar fingers, reminiscing. I stand on the shore of an ocean. The place where I was born was once a sea, so they say. There is sand and rich black composted loam on the flat fertile plains now red and gold with poppies and wheat, soil which sometimes throws fossils of shells at the plough-follower's feet. I stand on the shore of a different ocean. This is a foreign land. Its people's souls are strange and hide behind dark Polynesian eyes. And yet we were all sailors together, all leaving some old shore for new — navigating by wind and star waiting for a sign that land was Becoming, forming, drawing itself into shape from the line of the horizon where sky met sea. Eyes on the edge of the world until the mysterious became familiar — a piece of driftwood floating by, a gull's cry, some strange shore emerging from beyond veils of cloud. Feet step onto the unimaginable grown solid grown real; toes curl in alien sand. Step forward – claim the undiscovered land, looking forward. Anticipating. And yet — it is achingly not, can never be, the place that was left behind. Arriving, you leave the boats on an alien strand and turn to look at the empty sea you have crossed, and distant, familiar voices whisper insistently in your mind about the home that is lost — always remembering, always looking back. [Ed. Note: This is the first part of a 10-part poem that we will publish in its entirety over the next few renditions. Next »] · · · · · ·
Alma Hromic, the author with R. A. Deckert of Letters from the Fire, was born in Novi Sad, Yugoslavia. However she has lived outside her native country for much of her life: Zambia, Swaziland, South Africa, the UK and New Zealand. Trained as a microbiologist, she spent some years running a scientific journal, and later worked as an editor for an international educational publisher. Her own publishing record includes her autobiography, Houses in Africa, The Dolphin's Daughter and Other Stories, a bestselling book of three fables published by Longman UK in 1995, as well as numerous pieces of short fiction and non-fiction. Her last novel, the first volume of a fantasy series, Changer of Days: The Oracle, was published in September 2001 by Harper Collins. Last January, Hromic won the much coveted BBC online short story competition. Her story, The Painting, was broadcast in the UK in the last week of January 2001. Do you wish to share your opinion? We invite your comments. E-mail the Editor. Please include your full name, address and phone number. If we publish your opinion we will only include your name, city, state, and country. Please, feel free to insert a link to this article on your Web site or to disseminate its URL on your favorite lists, quoting the first paragraph or providing a summary. However, please DO NOT steal, scavenge or repost this work without the expressed written authorization of Swans, which will seek permission from the author. This material is copyrighted, © Alma A. Hromic 2002. All rights reserved. No part of this material may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. |
This Week's Internal Links
The United States v. Democracy - by Stephen Gowans
The Wrong Stuff - by Deck Deckert
The Hand Of God - by Alma Hromic
Of Rice And Men: The Mistaken Promise Of Genomics - by Jan Baughman
Self Interest - by Milo Clark
Israel - by Milo Clark
Massacre Or Not? It Depends On Which Side Of Washington's Ledger You're On - by Stephen Gowans
Blackmailing Palestinians: Plucked, Cooked, Baked And Packaged - by Gilles d'Aymery
Going Home: ii - Taking Flight - Poem by Alma Hromic
Dollars for Terror - Book Review by Milo Clark
Blighted National Priorities - Book Review by Milo Clark
Alma Hromic on Swans
Essays published in 2002 | 2001
On the Anniversary (September 2000)
Subject: Into Myth (September 2000)
Sadness in Novi Sad, Serbia (April 2000)