How many times do you turn tangled memories
over and over in your mind?
How many half-heard conversations
do you decide were just concoctions of a wishful-thinking
wondering?
Images advance and recede, side-step and sway
out of your vision – and the faces, oh the faces,
they are wreathed in wraith-like wisps of mist,
tantalisingly out of reach.
You fear that you are merely fanciful, creating a castle of cards –
oh, no, not a house! – of four feuding families
that will collapse under the weight of your expectation.
‘Where did I come from?’
‘What blood runs like rivulets in my veins?’
Now, I know. Now, I know.
The lovely Björn was this week’s host over at dVerse, the poet’s pub, where he asked us to use alliteration and consonance in our poems. I used this opportunity to reflect on some news I received this week about a certain part of my family’s history. It answered a great deal of questions that have been floating around in my head for a long time.
If you feel like putting pen to paper, so to speak, head on over to dVerse and join in!
This is “Jewess with Oranges” painted by Aleksander Gierymski.
Freya Writes... 
Nice line: “Images advance and recede, side-step and sway”
Thank you!
“This is it,” so to say. “Face it.” And, “take it leave it.” Sperma.”Go for it.” And, “your choice.”
And you know, Freya, aI believe it is perfect, you were the one pointing this out. Ai am certain Freia is the origin to the Swedish word “fröjd”. And, in 1918, this Norwegian chocolate manufacturer established Chocladfabriken Marabou in Sweden. And, that was a crazy thing to do, and that name is sufficiently madness. And what did the Swede do? He made a triangular chocolate with nuts, in it, to be bought on airfields!
I do not know what type of secrets you have, though the feuding families and the house take me to secrets that might still run in your blood… I am cleaning out the house after my mother, and there are so many parts I never knew, and finding just a hint is a bit scary.
Hi Björn – it is to do with making connections, having information confirmed and learning new things about my family’s past. And yes, what is in the blood. I’m sorry to read about your mother. It is hard, isn’t it?
Actually I lost my mother very gradually… in the end it felt like a confirmation… more than a tragedy.
I’m sorry for that too. My father in law is going that way. But even so, the confirmation is difficult.
There are so many family secrets and mysteries buried in the pages of time. Glad you’ve unraveled a family mystery!
Thank you!
“Wreathed in wraith-like waves”. That is a stunning example of alliteration and consonance.
Thank you so much!