Eighty seven or eight years old,
she was, quite deaf and yet
we'd bawl our names as though
to rouse her from the slow
decline and stir her almost sleeping
heart, identify our kids and muddle
all her sense of time.
Like curling snapshots kept
to weave the thread of generations,
we kept her. We, my family,
she, a simple woman - mind-jammed
in between the turn of centuries.
As kids ourselves, we'd heard
how she was pulled alive
from bomb-swept streets, in nineteen
forty two, and through the heart-storm
of her mother's sudden death.
At forty five, an orphan taken in
and kept until today when, cutting
threads at eighty odd, she died
and prised two centuries apart.
Many many years ago, I read the poem and saw Mattie's face, transported back to the backs of our roads, I never knew Mattie(
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem
She was part of the community, i never knew her story but know how cared for she was by the family who cared.