WHEN MY MOTHER WAS NINE YEARS OLD.. Joanna Svensson

 

"With do respect for my mothers' story"

It was a lovely late summers morning
With clear and lofty sky
The sun stood high above the roof tops
It was to be a very solemn day

For a little school girl unforgetable
Just like each September the first
In the secure little village
Where the children knew every street

You were all dressed up - in new made gown
With white rosettes - in your hair
Ready for summon in the third grade
Sharp, alert ąnd filled with expectations
On your way to school with mom and dad

The school was waiting - with open arms
Filled with bright and future knowledge
You felt the fragrance of the white walls
Brilliantly new chalked
Beaming of purity
Gleaming of security
And embraching prosperity

The first of September in 1939
The sun was already on high
In the clear blue sky
Everyone with proud heads
And straightened backs
Ready to embrace a new year in school

No one ever felt
Not even the slightest, tiniest little chill of worry
No one ever sensed the silent burr
Like a hum from the bumble-bee's
Far away by the horizon

But it was not to be any first day of school
It was not to be anything at all like that!
This September the first
The humming of bumble-bee's
Changed into becoming airplanes
A whole squadron kept coming close

Very few in this little village
Even had a radio set by then
And surely noone had listened
To the broadcast at five forty
Very few had ever seen
A real aeroplane before
So the children all greeted them
by waving their hands in the sky

But foreign troops
Had once again crossed
Your childhoods' secure borders
In the night - like the most simple thief
With malice hidden
And blood on its agenda

Soon new topics
Were put on your schedule
Soon you had to learn
Something else than math
Something new about geography
About history and about violence
Something you did not want at all

Bullets whizzed and scattered
All around and everywhere
To the ground your playmates fell
And laid still - never to play again

Then suddenly there were bombs
Your pretty school was blown to pieces
Your rosy teacher on its stairs
Fell to the ground in a last surprise
With a frozen smile on her painted red lips
And an unspoken question in her wide open eyes

The school bell in her hand
Hit the marble staircase with a clang
That told everyone: No school today!
It chimed so sad - something else but summon

Your dress was all smuthered
When your mother in panic pure
Pushed her daughter to the ground
With herself as a shield on top

All went dark
All went dusty
It whizzed and rumbled all around
You felt your childhood at this very  moment
Coming to a bitter end

Brutally crushed
Your trust in mankind
You, who was raised to believe
That everyone wished you the best
Yes, from this very moment
The world you knew was for ever lost

Still today you see shadows creeping
Shadows from so long ago
They patter around
In the deep of your subconscious
Pushed away by your fear
By your own survival strategy
By the fear that has shaped
All the prudence in your long, long life
By the fear that has shaped
Even me!

©® Joanna Svensson
© Private picture: Joanna Svensson