TEARS IN KRAKOW

We stood at the airport
Knowing
The moment was near
That I would fly away
And we would never
See each other again

Your face
The image of you waving goodbye
Tears flowing down your cheeks
As I turned to look at you
One last time
Languishes in my memory
The way only foreign things can
The pain of leaving a place
You know you can never fully understand
As an outsider
And yet
It is somehow part of me now
Comes to me in dreams

I am sorry
That we are from such different worlds
So far in culture and time
Worlds we just couldn't bridge
No matter how hard we tried

When I first arrived in Krakow
And saw you waiting for me
Your face looked so happy and alive
So anxious to start our new life together
You looked so beautiful
I couldn't keep my hands away
From your warm ones in the cab
It felt so good to be with you again
On the other side of the ocean
After the lonely, rainy nights of Seattle

Our hopes faded soon
I'm sorry for that
But not before
We learned so much from each other
Which others can never understand
Unless they know what it means
To be torn between two worlds

Sometimes when I'm alone
A memory passes through me
I see us standing on a hill
Overlooking Przemysl
The sun is going down
The river looks distant
Your father is lighting candles
And placing flowers
On your mother's grave
We watch in silence

I didn't know her
She died before we met
But I felt her absence too
A vague feeling
That something was missing
She was there and yet she wasn't
She was everywhere I looked
And yet she was gone
Like those years that were ours
But are no longer

Her death
Was never spoken about directly
As most painful things are not
But, I knew that your hearts were good
When I watched your father dance
In a Russian way
That I sensed was very old
Passed down through the ages
By a hard, tough people
Whose dreams
Never really seem to come true
But keep on living anyway

I know it was hard for you
Listening to all the people in town
Wondering who the American was
The way they would stare
When we walked by
The news it gave the neighbors
To gossip about
And your father to worry about
As he worked in his garden

Sometimes I still hear their voices
Speaking words I don't understand
When someone asks me
What I'm thinking about
I answer
"Oh, nothing"

I don't have the heart to tell them
Nor the words to describe
The look I saw on your face
That day at the airport
The rivers of emotion
In your eyes
The pain of wanting it to be different
The sadness of what could have been
But never was

Our plans to go to Italy
For the summer
Quickly fell by the wayside
But just thinking about it was good
It gave me such a tremendous feeling
As I walked to the school I taught at
To find eager faces waiting for me

There were times when I thought
Maybe we can make it work
If we don't give up
If we keep trying
We'll find a way to stay together
Like when I would drive
Narrow, winding streets
And you would give me directions
Reading the signs
For my foreign eyes
As we drove past
Castles and fortresses
On cobblestone roads
Where the buildings are old
And dirty from coal
Layer upon layer
Century upon century
Restoring each other
As they fade further into the past

I liked it when you were happy
But it hurt me deeply to see you sad
Caught between your father
And what he expected of you
And what I needed from you

There's a loneliness that settles on you
When you're in a different country
A loneliness that never goes away
You try to make it work
Your try everything
You can possibly think of
But, it isn't home
Your family isn't there
So, when you get a letter
From your own country
Perhaps not even from someone special
But a letter from home
In your own language
How much it can do
For a sad heart
That feels displaced

I remember looking out the window
Just before spring arrived
The wind was blowing from the east
Its fury shaking the windows
As I stood alone
In the cold, drafty stairwell
Watching snow fall
Until everything was white

I can't really put it in words
But as I watched the chimney smoke
Rise through the air
I felt further away from everything
At that moment
Than I have ever felt before

A few weeks later
The snow melted
The rains came
Trees blossomed
And flowers bloomed
The streets filled with people
Life felt new again
Before long
The trains from Russia
Didn't seem in such a hurry