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I carry them all like recordings, the remembered and the never heard voices, my living and my dead. Their laughter. The vanished arguments over jealously guarded ideas. The excited telling of stories to the elders of my clan. The characteristic turn of phrase of those who are no longer there; The chuckles of their inheritors, the children whose lives began long after I left the city that sheltered all our childhoods. The voices of the place swirl in my mind haunting, clear, calling; the sound of river shore-lapping gently, or soft New Year's Eve snow falling. The rustle of willow leaves. The whisper of rain on shingle roof or slapping on double-glazed windowpane. Hurrying footfalls on wet autumn streets. Chanted mass drifting through cathedral doors left ajar, curling out like exotic audible incense into the cold blue air. The wind that wails down the boulevards with human voice. The language of stone and stream and field, of familiar country, unspoken but deeply understood, piercing the heart with sweet pain. They speak of the feet that walked this ground that became pavement and street and voices of ancestors I have never known shiver like dry leaves stirred by autumn's fingers as the year turns. They speak of choices. They speak of comings and goings, of children leaving to seek a fortune always beckoning from beyond the next horizon — of the tombs full of mourning bones left behind after the young have gone. [Ed. Note: Fifth part of a 10-part poem. « Beginning | « Previous | Next »] · · · · · ·
Alma Hromic, the author with R. A. Deckert of Letters from the Fire, was born in Novi Sad, Yugoslavia. 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. Hromic is an essential member of Swans. She maintains her own Web site (with Deck Deckert) where she provides information about her work and the professional services she offers: ButterknifeBooks.com 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 poem 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
Untangling The Mideast For A Martian - by Deck Deckert
Birds In The Attic - by Michael Stowell
The Tribulations Of The Toads - by Gilles d'Aymery
Illusion. . . Delusion. . . Confusion - by Milo Clark
Special Conditions - by Milo Clark
Should We Spend Or Should We Save? - by Jan Baughman
Highway Robbery Without A Gun - by James Longo
St Vitus Day: Better Grave Than Slave! - by Alma Hromic
Fight Spam (UCE) - by CAUCE
Jupiter's Eye - Poem by David Garrett
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)