Beneath the Level of the Sea.
Where I live now...I had a garden of forget-me-nots
But even they have gone
They hitched a ride on summer’s fleeing wing...and left the garden bare again
Just as it was before I came along and interfered with things.
But now I sit...quiet and still in this lay-by on a road in Nederland
With no idea of why I’m here or why I came to be
On this strange piece of flattened land .... that leads to Amsterdam.
How bleak and dull it is with its small raindrop tears...and yet...
There in the mists I sense the magnet pull
Of something old and real of yesterday...something I used to know
Strange memories deep within..like shrivelled peas
Yellowed . Almost forgotten in their dried up pod.
There is a photo lying somewhere in a drawer
Where I stand , my mother by my side
And both of us are wearing woollen scarves to save us from the bitter cold
But that was long ago..
After a war which tore us all from limb to limb.
Here is a resurrected land
That battled for its right to stay
Beneath the level of the sea.
And...
It is part of my ancestry.
Kristine Byrne 26 sept 2011