Showing posts with label Walking. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Walking. Show all posts

Monday, 28 July 2025

Walking: not just a word but a motif

Our regular laureate, Hanassi member Pessy Krausz, has been at it again. With Tisha be'Av in mind, and having regard to her own remarkable escape from Nazi Germany in the Second World War -- culminating in a quite incredible voyage with the British army in their retreat from the beaches of Dunkirk --  she has composed a moving and evocative piece that she has themed around the concept of walking, the word that gives this poem its title.

Walking

by Pessy Krausz (14 July 2025)

Is jogging on my father’s shoulders
as he made his way fast
ever faster from Antwerp to Belgium
called walking

 Is jumping to the booming sounds
of Nazi bombs dropping all around
as my mother – putting one foot in front of the other
barely keeping up with my tall father
clings to his arm saying -
Nich so schnell Aron, das Kind schlaft!
(Not so fast Aron – The child (me) is sleeping!)
called walking

 Is skipping along the narrow aisle
singing Pessy, drei dich, Pessy drei dich
when dropped into a fishing boat
saving us from certain death
from Nazi-overrun Dunkirk to Dover
stopping at each end of the gangway
as I pause to catch my breath
called walking

 Is being re-united in 1940 with my father
in a British town called Bletchley
and seeking a roof over our heads when
mother – Have you got a room? -
knocks on door after slammed door
to chorus of No Jews here while
dragging my tired 3 year old feet
until one gives us an attic palace
called walking

 Is finally being able to go to school
in brown lace up booties
the joke of all in my five year old class
with their smart patent leather shoes
and me with hair coiled on top of my head
all the rage in Germany where I was born
while all with bows and plaits and curls
make my way home past sniggering sillies
called walking

I’d rather be walking to and fro
speaking of Michael Angelo
than think how those cattle trucks come and go
where so many of mine and others perished -
I’d rather be walking to and fro in my very own land
speaking of miracles in our time
weathering the storms of Iron and Lion’s wars- 
children on my shoulders, and theirs on theirs
is the real miracle
walking on this earth and on Israel’s Holy soil
Yes! that is called walking!

Quick greet, dead heat

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