Special Gifts

Rose Mary Boehm

 

By Editor Sharon Waller Knutson

Novelist and Poet Rose Mary Boehm shares powerful poignant poems that tell the story of her life from her book, “Life Stuff” (Kelsay Books 2023.)

“If I didn’t write, especially poetry, I’d probably be quite mute in five languages or, more likely, I’d implode,” Rosemary says. “While my heart occasionally rummages in German, my mouth speaks Spanish, my spirit is playing in English, and I even have to look up the occasional French or Dutch word.”

Storytellers Speak out:

Tamara Madison, author of “Along the Fault Line” and “Morpheus Dips His Oar” says:

In Life Stuff Boehm shows the reader a life full of movement and experience, a life in which she has been “showered with riches” and “hurt beyond measure.” She shows us war from the wide-eyed perspective of an observant child who doesn't fully see the deprivations brought on by war. Her world “smells of summer and wounded earth.” Later, the poet wonders whether the future will remember us, whether “the mountains still echo our voices...water... remember our form...air (which) formerly made room for us.” These are poems of someone who faces the future with the same curious eyes that observed the painful and beautiful world of her childhood.

Alarie Tennille, author of “Three A.M. at the Museum” writes:

Life Stuff—a fitting title for Boehm, who’s a great hoarder of life. Leaving behind the terror, uncertainty, and hunger of her childhood in Nazi Germany, Boehm forged a new life in a new country with a new language, culture, geography, and climate again, again, and again. She embraces the best of each life, learns from the worst, and distills it to share with readers. We should all take her advice to “Sing, dance, drink, write poetry, weave… /Make God think that He did well. /Anything to prevent Him from thinking/ He must start all over again.”

A Memory

The way my father stood
by the evening sun-lit window, a golden halo
playing around his hair
and how he would look
so quietly out of the window, blinking
into those slanted rays of burnt orange.

His thumb in his waistcoat pocket,
his watch chain performing
the perfect shape, just as watch chains
hanging from waistcoat pockets
should. Rather than seeing it then,
I knew that on the left side
of my father’s nose
there was a fleshy mound—not too big.
I would always recognize
my father’s nose.

I couldn’t see that either,
but I knew my father’s hat
hung on the stand-up wardrobe
in the hall, the one with the big mirror
and the large hooks made from a copper alloy,
doubled as not to damage the clothes. I was tracing
the raised flower pattern on the wallpaper.

The evening sun slants across my desk
and makes it difficult to see
the computer screen. My eyes
are wet. The insistent phone calls me.
 

What I Learned When I Was Six

My first death was the sow.
I’d held her in my arms when she’d been small,
how heavy she had seemed.
That wriggling, fat, slippery body.

I kissed her on her little snout with the black dot,
her funny feet scratched me in her scramble
before she slipped back into the muddy straw,
falling into the wriggly mass of pink and grey bodies,
seeking her mother.
We called her Irma.

After about six months (for six-year-old me
that was ‘a long time later’)
I heard a cry so piercing that I felt it cut my bones.
Standing on tiptoes, I looked from the kitchen window
and saw big Irma in the yard, four men holding her legs,
the executioner sliding his knife
across her throat from ear to ear, her mouth reminding
me of Guernica—looking back with adult eyes—
and soon her throat was a gaping, open wound.
The knife was rather small, I thought,
for doing so much damage.

There was the blood.
Liters of blood.
From our kitchen window
I saw Irma’s body drained and then
hacked
into
pieces
by old men wielding big knives and even axes.
A bucket full of her blood
taken to the utility outbuilding.

I am not so sure, now, at the end
of my life, but I think I understood then
what the grownups meant when they
talked about the war deaths in hushed voices.

 
Evensong

When I met you that day between the tall building
at the corner of Argensola and Santa Barbara
I marveled at your beauty.
Your ebony hair danced on the evening breeze.
Your back curved under the blue silk shirt
that tried to follow its seaward line.

We walked at your rhythm,
dreading separation, we pressed on through the crowds
in the old part of town... in calle de León we found
a table for one-and-a-half, and the sweet odour
of your skin was stronger than the clouds
of black tobacco lingering blue against the yellow lights.

You wanted only to dance. Life didn’t suit you.
You said you hadn’t asked for it so why
had it chosen you?
Your hands touched mine.

My love’s back curves convex, his hips’ hinges rusted.
I smile at the white wisps of remaining curl.
You hadn’t wanted a job in admin,
but write poems that make my toes curl.
 

I didn’t

My brother said, ‘Don’t come. ‘
I didn’t. Fly out to see her one last time.
My brother said, ‘She doesn’t know who I am.’
I figured she wouldn’t know who I am either.

I had never been near the deaths of my loved ones.
I think I avoided the grief.
I had lost them already.
Or so I’d thought.
Or so I’d hoped?
I had just picked up my children from school.
My brother called, ‘She’s gone.’
I could hear his utter disbelief.
His voice choking in watery phlegm.

And suddenly I felt empty, abandoned,
a forlorn child in a big world,
a woman without substance,
homeless.

And suddenly my losses multiplied,
and all the tears I’d never shed
filled a salty ocean of grief and guilt.

And suddenly I was there with her, wrestling
with her demons. I wondered whether
I would have recognized her.
My father had been a dark-blue, life-size remake
in a life-size box, vaguely reminding me
of the man who held open his arms when
I came flying.

Three days to dying.
Three days of longing.
Three days of holding on.
Perhaps…
But I didn’t.
I didn’t. Fly out to see her one last time.
Leave everything and hurry to see her and let her touch me
one last time, let her know I cared enough.
To tell her one more time ‘I love you, Mum,’
tell her one more time ‘I am strong
because you made me so.’
Thank her one more time for
giving me her life.


Coming Home

Madrid

It’s been four long COVID years. I watch the screen on which the little plane inches along towards our destination. ‘We are getting ready to land at Madrid Barajas, please return to your seats.’ Barajas, the name of a village taken over by runways. There she is, grinning with affection. My old friend. I am weighed down by clothes for two seasons. Then there are the presents, of course. From Peru with love. Madrid’s familiar skyline makes me feel that I am home again.

London

Can’t wait to see them all. Kids, granddaughters, friends… We are landing. London, Heathrow. I’ll be taking the train. My son will be waiting for me at Victoria Station. The man with a big neck, lots of hair and muscles looks at my cases. Traveling alone, Ma’am? 15 minutes in the ‘silent car’. Small joys.  I can see him now. God, Mum, what’s all this? He grins and takes over. I can’t believe that chaotic Victoria Station forecourt would ever turn me on. And there’s the Cornish Pasty Shop. Deliciousness wafts over. So good to be home again.

Duesseldorf

We are landing at Duesseldorf. They’ve only got one airport. Didn’t bother to name it. A small on-board case: one extra shirt and clean knickers. My brother is standing at the back of the waiting crowd, still tall. Smiles his reluctant smile. Hi, sis. Traveling light? I’ll only be here for four days and sure of the climate. We are driving past my old school. It looks vaguely familiar.  They built a lot, he explains, and the little trees have grown. I am home again in a melancholic way.

Lima

It’s time. Lima, Peru. They’ve only got one airport but call it Jorge Chavez. No, not Hugo. Lima in winter. Marinated in grey. Shuffling through immigration control, like sheep being herded to the dip. Shit, where’s my resident’s card... Oh, I forgot: I have a passport now! Hope they won’t open my cases full of love from London, Madrid and Duesseldorf. Husband waves. Apart from his jeans and sweater he wears one red rose and a big grin. I’m home again.


To read more about Rose Mary Boehm:

https://stortellerpoetryreview.blogspot.com/2023/11/storyteller-of-week.html

To buy the book:

https://www.rose-mary-boehm-poet.com/


https://www.amazon.com/Life-Stuff-Rose-Mary-Boehm/dp/1639804668