'Der Kinda, Der Kinda'......For My Oma Poem by John Tansey

And as my mother would cry,
'Mama, I can't go back to him'

She would, look up from her lnitting

(How long it has been
since someone called me
by my first name, she mused)

But stopping her in her blindness,
I tugged at her house dress
while she was arranging her yarns.

'Oma', I said
melting into the apron of her
grandmotherly warmth

'Go back with your husband',
she replied to my mother,
'He is a good provider'
'and no matter what, all men cheat'

And I, her young grandson,
seeing her droop and shake her head,

know now, as an adult,
forty years later,
what she knew then, what she meant when

When she mournfully intoned...

'O' but what of the Der Kinda,
Der kinda'?