Book of the Week

 My Father’s Sky (Kelsay Books 2026) by Rose Mary Boehm

 

Comments by Editor Sharon Waller Knutson

Colorful as the cover, clever and well crafted, Rose Mary Boehm’s new poetry collection, “My Father’s Sky,” take us on a wild ride through turbulent skies from her childhood in Germany during World War II to Peru where she now lives at the age of 88. In Rose Mary’s signature storyteller style, she shares stories that made me feel like I was there living her life.  I was riveted and read it from cover to cover and didn’t want it to end. The 109-page book contains 60 poems and is divided into four sections: My Father’s Sky, September, Tumbleweed and The Wine Colored Seas.

Rose Mary dedicates the book to “my amazing granddaughters: Blossom and Daphne, so they can read stories I might not have the time to tell, as well as to my dear Lima friend Barbara von Merck who lived in some of my worlds.

The cover is illustrated by Kiki Suarez, a German born artist who found her niche of life in the southeast of Mexico.

I’ll let the praise from two members of the storyteller community and poems tell the story.

Joan Leotta, Story Performer and Poet writes:

My Father’s Sky is a wonderful collection of small moments and reflections on deep questions begins with a deep dive into the Germany of her childhood. In her early years, the personal was often beaten about, roiled, by the political chaos and cruelty of World War II and the postwar period in her homeland. With an unerring pen, Rose consistently finds the intersection of personal and the world around it to create a place for our reflection. She tells us at the beginning, “I am a gypsy in time and place. Wherever I go I collect stories, moments, injustices, and joy. Every time the box is filling up, it all wants out to become poems.”

Alan Walowitz, author, The Story of the Milkman and Other Poems writes:

“My Father’s Sky,” the title poem in Rose Mary Boehm’s latest collection, reveals how a skilled poet reaches into her distant memories, transforms them into something new, and then — with joy and passion — passes them to us. The poet’s magic! The opening poem tells us much about the distance we are about to travel, a journey through displacement, discovery, and re-invention which, though challenging, reveals what a poet of honesty, grace, and maturity is capable of. How lucky we are to be in her company! Toward the end, Boehm asks, “Where your world ends, does mine begin?” No matter where she has been — Germany, Holland, London, Lima now, and so many other stops — she is a seeker of connection. Here, through her poems, she finds it with us, despite her own knowledge that the deepest connection, the one we all seek, might not lie easily within our reach. Fortunately, in My Father’s Sky, Boehm makes the unlikely seem quite possible.

Some of my favorite poems:

My Father’s Sky
 
My hand disappeared in his, our boots
swished on the snow, already hardened
by many steps. That is the Milky Way, he said,
and pointed at a giant river of twinkling lights
that looked nothing like milk.
Oh, and over there, that ‘W’ is Cassiopeia.
I knew the Big Dipper, of course,
and Father let me find Orion. A belt woven
from starlight. Draw a line through the belt
towards the left, he said. See that bright star?
That’s Sirius. The Dog Star.
No, no dogs on Sirius.
It’s part of the ‘Canis Major’ constellation,
that means ‘Greater Dog’ in Latin.
How disappointing. I had imagined all dogs coming
to us from Sirius, beings from space.
The sky began to fall into some kind of order,
a glittering glory of twinkles and tinkles
I would remember forever, and my small, cold hand
being warmed in my father’s big one.
 
Big cities let me forget my father’s sky. Sometimes
even the moon was hidden by buildings that seemed
to loom dark, towering, and unforgiving.
The city lights made me ignore the grandeur
of a world beyond, the mysteries of space.
There always was, of course, the latest on the Internet,
TV, and assorted means of communication.
A little machine on Mars sent pictures from a desert
that once held some form of life perhaps. Bradbury’s
‘Martian Chronicles’ had awakened a longing, Heinlein’s
‘Red Planet’ had convinced me of the reality of my dreams.
 
One day, after I had held my grandchildren’s hands
and showed them Orion, Cassiopeia, the Big Dipper
and Sirius – the only ones I recognised—
we found home on our small piece of earth
in the middle of nowhere on the Castilian plateau.
A warm night caressed me as I sat on the pretend
plastic boulder that looked like a stone (something
dishonest somebody had thought up to house
the gear that made our pool work);
I heard the bulls low across
the quiet night and dreaming fields,
from the pond came the occasional splash.
A nightbird called its mate, the walnut tree
bombarded the wooden bench below it,
and I looked for Orion towards the horizon,
setting my eyes to ‘far away’ to find the Milky Way,
looking behind me to the left for Cassiopeia, and whispered
‘Dogs on Sirius’ to my father who had—softer than any feather—
taken my warm hand in his cold one.


My Mother the Alchemist
 
I’d watch her transform stinging nettles into spinach soup after we picked them carefully, trying to touch only the underside of the leaves. We had no gloves. Dandelion shoots became salad with a bit of vinegar and salt. She magically metamorphosed a box of our silver flatware into a hundredweight of potatoes, her last damask tablecloth somehow converted itself into another hundredweight of carrots.
 
She brought water from the pump in two heavy buckets up to the second floor on stone stairs. That became soup, drinking water, and a bird bath for my budgie.
 
After picking up the left-over stalks from fields the farmers had finished harvesting, mother dried the wheat and ground it in the coffee mill for a chunky morning porridge.
 
One day’s worth of sewing underpants for the Russian army mutated miraculously into bread and sometimes butter.
 
And at the end of the day, mother made the best magic of all: with a book on her lap, by the light of a glowing fire in the wood stove, she transformed a different hunger into possibilities.
  
Sentries and markers
The hinterland of dreams
Deliverance


Bad Women
 
My aunt was fur and long red fingernails,
she was Arpège and hats with veils,
worn at an angle.
She was dare and devil,
bewitching and hot of temper.
Oh, the temper.
There was a buzz about her.
When she walked (she never tottered)
on heels that reached into the sky,
there was a swishing sound of silk and taffeta
rubbing and inviting lewd thoughts.
I read the thoughts in men’s eyes
when they watched her pass.
She was earrings that pulled the earlobes
down with their weight—
glass, not diamonds.
It was said she had lovers.
There were other aunts who had husbands.
She was everything I wanted to be
when I grew up, and I was prepared to pay
the price of nasty whispers behind
gloved hands, raised eyebrows, jealous looks
that could kill.
I’d watch her lift up her chin, raise
her long cigarette holder, and smile.


Flying to New York
 
We are doing a left.
The Hudson Bay disappears under
the rising wing,
the sea comes towards us.
 
I remembered Miss Geography.
An elderly ship in which we safely sailed
in a no-nonsense way.
I remembered the wooden stick
in her bony hand, veins thick
under her skin, poking the map
of North America.
“Hudson Bay!” she stentored sternly,
and repeated it so it would penetrate
our thick skulls. “Hudson Bay!”
 
And when we approached Canada,
before making the turn,
it all looked exactly as it did then,
in that dingy school room,
on that much used geography map
hanging from a rusty hook in the wall.
It was for rolling up.
As Miss Geography became more relaxed,
one leg went up onto an unoccupied bench,
and long, beige, woolen bloomers
became visible under a medium long,
beige skirt.
 
There were only old teachers left.
It was 1950. The young ones
had all been killed at the front.
The new crop hadn’t been harvested yet.
Then, one day they trickled in.
First just a few.
Oh. My. God. There was Miss French.
She can’t have been older than 25.
She wore fashionable dresses,
and lipstick!
We all loved her to bits and wanted
to be like her when we grew up!
She was soon followed by Mr History.
We swooned, and my friend Doris
passed her history exam with
a very revealing wrap-around blouse
as well as two impressive tits.
Mr Maths and Miss Art, we snickered,
saw each other after class.
 
When I pedaled my bike home,
my school satchel clamped precariously
behind my squeaky seat, I looked forward
to this unknown journey awaiting me,
once I was free to explore a world
that was so full of promise.
I took my hands off the handlebars
and whistled.


Waltz me Towards the Tango
 
Düsseldorf
Helsinki
Paris
Antwerp
Amsterdam
London. The 60s. A husband and a family.
My mother tongue goes on crutches
with a disturbed syntax,
while I am growing
into my new language
yet unformed, a toddler
that wobbles with insecure legs onto a page.
 
Everything is new and not that shiny.
Learning how to be a wife, soon to be a mother.
Finding out where the buses go. Living on love
and father-in-law’s occasional offerings (he’s got
a shop in Finsbury Park… food, mostly.)
 
Liebe Mutti, Ich brauche Dich. I need you, Mum.
The telephone is expensive, letters take up to five days.
By the time they get to their destination, the news
is old. When I bring that baby home, I am sure
I’ll kill him. Washing the nappies by hand,
moving my hips to the neighbour’s blue beat.
 
I can’t quite express what is in me, I don’t quite
understand the laughter that follows an obvious
joke, not that the joke is at all obvious to me. I dress
like the Queen Mum at parties designed for minis or
bell-bottoms. My slow waltzes still inform my first twist,
my friends gently take the piss,
and I am not yet sure about the ‘why’.
 
Years pass, my language is English, the learning
curve was steep, the result satisfying. Laughing about
myself comes easy, and I discover a sense of humour
that draws from a well I share in a surprising
and profound way. I read my favourites in the original.
I timidly reach out to words that might a poem make.
 
Life’s vagaries bring me to Lima via Madrid.
My tangos are blighted by the memory of flamenco,
salsa a far cry from the Beatles,
and I am fluent in Spanish.
I am fluent in Catholic, and fluent
in Latin shoulder shrugs. I have learned to read
through superficial amabilidad and the every-day language
of taking oneself very seriously.
 
But my library, sprinkled with books
in the languages of distant planets,
is filled with pages in English, the last plank of my ship
that broke apart somewhere over the Pacific.


Things I Found at the Bottom of my Doom Box
 
Two half-eaten romances
A one-night stand
A kiss that never was
Butterfly wings made of regrets
Several hateful thoughts
Quite a few wild nights of alcohol, dance,
and expectations
An unfinished composition of little musical interest
High heels in hand, tiptoeing out of a hotel
Various boxes full of good intentions
A folder with poems that rhyme
Two chapters of him being handsome and strong,
her being needy and whiny
At least ten bundles of angst in all colours
Insecurity of African proportions and a good dollop
of body dysmorphia
A jump from the ten-meter board
to impress the boys
Tomes of heimweh in the key of E minor
Sacks full of false memories
Spring mornings with open windows, blue air,
and Vivaldi’s Mandolin Concierto No. 1
The mysteries of Oxfordshire’s hidden cottages
winking from behind wild-flower hedges
A dislocated shoulder after practicing the Kama Sutra
Hand-washed nappies on the lines in the moonlit
garden, hanging them to the neighbour’s blue beat
Teddybearspicknick accompanied by watermelon
and Haloumi cheese
Nights with my colicky firstborn slung over my shoulder
My baby daughter’s first smile
Their father’s lover asking with shiny eyes
for his hand in marriage
 

The Prompter in One of London’s Lesser Theatres
 
Oh dear, she’s about to say the wrong lines again.
I hiss: “Find somebody else …”
Oh, she got it. Uff.
 
Who on earth put a polka-dot rug beneath that
faux art-nouveau dinner table?
Last night they had one with brown stripes.
Oh shit, how on earth did that cat get in?
The audience snickers.
 
As the leading lady’s feet walk by my box,
I can’t help getting distracted.
Not in a sexual way.
It’s just that her shoes are a little on the big side
and make that slurping noise,
let her walk appear a little inebriated.
Couldn’t they have found a pair that fitted?
Wardrobe is lacking, I see.
 
Why does he always forget his lines?
I whisper in my sharpest: “You think you still matter.”
Oh my God, he almost looks down,
What a twit.
 
Their on-stage marriage is supposed to be on the rocks.
His character drinks too much, and she is a cheat.
Since they are heavily into each other off set,
it’s difficult, I suppose.
 
There he goes. Finally.
Grab her by the throat. Yes! That’s it!
Now he’s on fire. He almost spits it out:
“You evil, cheating bitch!”
He lets her go.
“God, how I hate you. You have been a fake
from day one!”
I turn the page.
Look at my watch.
 
He’ll get to knifing her in about ten.
Every night when I hear her scream I know
I’ll just be able to catch the last Tube, sit with the mostly
young, drunk, noisy crowds that spilled from the pubs.
I wipe an invisible speck off my lapel,
adjust my wire-rimmed glasses,
open the ‘Evening Standard’
by the culture pages.
We all travel back to the suburbs.
 
Smoking is not allowed on the train.
The heavily tattooed kid in the olive green
army surplus jacket inhales deeply
and throws me a look of hatred mixed with disgust.

 
To buy the book:

https://www.amazon.com/Fathers-Sky-Rose-Mary-Boehm/dp/B0H6YHSXS1/ref=sr_1_1?dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.vLASBpfYjjooHQLChDcaOA.c-8ptPzv0lox6zPMXUeTSC94hlgo_FXAw38Nje0J_QI&dib_tag=se&keywords=my+father%27s+sky+by+boehm&qid=1785163564&sr=8-1

https://kelsaybooks.com/products/my-father-s-sky?fbclid=IwY2xjawTUTs5wZG9mAWV4dG4DYWVtAjEwAGJyaWQRMVA1NUZISnFVRzdTNnpaRE1zcnRjBmFwcF9pZBAyMjIwMzkxNzg4MjAwODkyAAEe3isH5qAgUazQUjQ5ctF8SF6N48TH7pBFMSYTBXt7nXl9UKNGv2ZApM0ZX5s_aem_eh2W-y76HM7ccnkLiUiEZg

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