Apart Poem by Magdalena Biela

This poem is about being separated from your loved ones at the Holidays when family togetherness is so important. At first it almost cancels out the spirit of the Holiday that you're NOT celebrating in each other's presence. Then something amazing happens in the poem: you give each of your parents a kiss, and it's AS IF you three ARE together. I have always loved poetry for making the AS IF experience possible. In your poem it is filled with human emotion almost too intense to bear. It pushes you past the sadness of the moment into the sincerest expression (although not immediate experience) of family love. I am deeply touched by your poem's intimacy.

I too live in other country than my own, away from my loved ones, so, perhaps that is why this poem touched a deeper chord inside me. I felt the same way in the night of New Year's Eve but I did not have the grace to put it in words so lovely.

To live in a foreign country, away from those you love, from your roots, it is not an easy task, I gather. This poem speaks in behalf of all people that live apart from their lands.