Ehva’s story
How I found Ehva
We’re waiting lined for the latrine –
Above us white-cut diamond skies,
Thin sun weak still struggling to rise –
Bodies numbed by the burning chill,
The stench of the pits damped, frozen.
A touch.
The woman behind. No more than twenty,
Face hollow, eyes filled with fresh ghosts.
Please hold her – a child blanketed –
The ground is hard, she pleads.
I wait for her return,
The child’s swell against my breast.
A shot. Screams.
Behind a screen.
A sniper.
We fall. Wait.
Wait. For the bell.
Find her slumped.
Red fractals. Blossoms. Stamped in ice.
How thick her blood spreads!
Her ghost strengthens. Grows. In her eyes lives.
Death pulling, frosted lashes flutter.
Keep her close, she whispers.
She’s lifted. Taken bound.
Back in my tent I unwrap;
The tag on her wrist states “Ehva”.
I am always faithful to the reading of your work, and I appreciate that you have one story that you need to tell; and the reading of it isn’t easy, but then what it tells can never be.
Dougie
I used to write love songs and mystic verses, but life has a way of stripping the veil from our eyes and exposing us to the unspeakable; that is my subject now.
do write about such a subject, but beware of its capacity to devour your mind, such subjects in my opinion it’s best if we on and off write about them, take a break once in a while, the world needs strong people like you, you will be needed again and again. pan metron ariston.
I am not strong; I am what they call “damaged goods”, and my writing reflects that damage.
very well-written, vivid poem again.
thank you. for reading and the kind words
I apologise as I am finding reading your excellently penned words are having a profound effect on me I cannot deal with at this time.
The world appears to be going to hell in a handbasket and I am struggling to keep positive for my depressed son and others.
When I think of the millions of children who have been slaughtered in deep underground military bases, the misery all around, I have to struggle to keep reminding myself of the beauty in life or I will sink.
Best wishes
Alison x
There is beauty in everything we see. The very fact that we are alive and can see is a witness to the beauty that permeates every cell in this and other universes. That we can wake up in the morning to birdsong, to look into the eyes of our children, those are daily miracles. I have been damaged not by life, but be people, and I am grateful that I can pick up a pen, sit at a keyboard and write, and I will write again about the beauty that I have seen and experienced and about the God that… Read more »
I am glad you understand. I am an empath and that can be more a curse than a blessing. There are various kinds,none better than the other but in my case I tend to feel the world’s pain.
Like you I am also aware of the great beauty in nature and the simple things. However, being a grandmother to three and another one coming in April, I have such a heart of love for the children and to know of their suffering is almost overwhelming.
Bless you and your path ahead.
Alison x