‘Crossings’ was given to Mrs. Mary Dmytryshyn in celebration of National Poetry Month, April 2008, Poetry Without Borders. Mary who is 95 years old, a best friend of Deborah's paternal grandmother, received the poem on April 17, 2008. Deborah had promised Mary that she would write the story of these courageous women who came to Canada and made a good life for themselves and their families. ‘Crossings’ is a first in series of poems of their story.
Crossings
Sitting in the Old Singer Sewing Machine Building -
now a book store
Nevsky Prospekt 28
St. Petersburg, Russia
July 2007
This 1904 art nouveau building has a huge globe at the top if its dome. It becomes my beacon as I walk around town to find my way back to my “mini hotel”, the place I stay in St. Petersburg. Originally this building was built for the American Singer Sewing Machine Company. It is now a book store. My bones smile at this imprint of my life. There is rightness to this symbol, in this city of symbols. This globe-bearing sewing machine-book store is my beacon and my grounding rod in this foreign city. The women I am thinking about… my ancestral lines and their webs of connecting lines… worked these sewing machines. I work in the world of books. I work in the world of books because they worked in the world of sewing machines.
I am on the second floor café drinking freshly squeezed orange juice, my primary access to vitamin C. We are told not to drink the water. I buy bottled water (after learning how to ask for vata bez gaza… water with no fizz) and I am very careful not to eat freshly washed fruits and vegetables. This is my first experience being in a modern urban centre where I cannot drink the water. These shocking contrasts of Nevsky Propekt, looking somewhat like Bloor and Avenue Road, unsettle me.
I have come from walking at the Museum of the Poet, Anna Akmotova (the place where she lived at one point with some protection) and the guide says that Akmotova chose not to leave her beloved St. Petersburg. She chose to remain and witness the plight of her fellow people, although her son was incarcerated twice and threatened with death.
As I sit at a corner round café table by a panoramic window overlooking Nevsky Prospekt in this globe bearing-sewing machine-bookstore with my red leather writing journal, I ask:
those who stay
and those who leave?
and those who leave,
face burning forward
all ties cut
And those who leave,
but never really leave?
Mary Prokipchuk — 1923
A fierce face at fourteen
burns forward
a face burned on a photo
a passport
a ticket
a bag
and not a glance back
You, just a little girl
left
no mother
no father
both dead within days
Influenza 1918
I have nine years old when my mother and father die
You cried not much, but wonder
who will comb my hair now?
Such a past cannot be packed
You travel light, you come alone
All ties to this place, this time,
pulled up with
the slimed slick of a sea anchor
hauled up and aft by sweaty seamen
stowed for weeks
A landing in a foreign land
the wrong train station
no one there
to meet you
You sit for hours
not a word of English have you packed
in your
oh so empty bag
You wait
untethered time
No way back
no glimpse of promised tomorrows
Mary Bikow — 1929
You come clutching
two sets of tiny hands
Nadia and John
All three of you in sailor suits
Your eyes
your hands
steel grips on them
Because you are terrified of water
so you do not look
Your face dripping
edges
lips
eyes
downcast
shadows falling
to the soft moist earth
you are loathe to leave
Your heart falls down
into the grave
your tears carve into this
home land
this motherland
No time to bury it fully
The boat pulls out
on nautical time,
not heart time.
Mary Dmytryshyn — 1929
At sixteen you choose to leave
on an uncle’s promise
to a world away
to the City
for an education
Your father says no, but signs the papers
Your mother does not sign, you sign for her
You, the mayor’s daughter
the man who tends beehives on
twenty acres of working farm land
A rich man
by village measure
No need to look afar for food
Your uncle says
You are too smart to stay with cows
Go to the City to learn something
You laugh
say that you are going to see
how the world looks like
One year finding the world
you the one who has spilled
over the edges of this too small place
you know as home
say
you’ll be gone one year,
Ha ha
Then you are gone.
© Deborah Prokipchuk Ackley 2008
