Maria Egel writes

Village winter.

Whiteness covers all poverty

A lone fox saunters across the frozen snow

Leaving neither print nor scent.

The mighty evergreens stand tall,

Topped with their own, glistening crowns

The wind howling through their branches

Creating an eerie concert

Accompanied by the doleful howling of a wolf

The wind driven snow, its perfect conductor.

And in this noisy stillness, all time is drowned. 

 

 Jagers in de Sneeuw (The Hunters in the Snow) -- Pieter Bruegel the Elder

Maria Egel writes

A Young Girl’s War and Peace - Part One

Spring was late in coming, my mom said, and so was I, her third daughter. May 15, rainy and cold, with still a wintery bite to it, was even unusual for the Bavarian Woods. I am sure there was gladness that I had all the right numbers of fingers and toes, but real joy would have been felt had I been a boy. 

My dad was so hoping for a son. A male child, who would grow up to be of help to him on the farm and in his workshop. A strong, healthy boy, he could finally brag about to his drinking buddies at the inn. They had a wager and about 80% predicted another girl. That would cost him a few rounds.

At least, the teasing would keep them occupied that evening and push aside the arguments about Mister Hitler and his war. Adolf  Hitler and his war! Every time they sat together, they ruminated on its pros and cons. Compulsive military service was re-introduced, the Versailles Peace Treaty was torn to shreds, and suddenly there was a law about who is or is not a Jew. The Nurnberg Laws. After a hard day's work and a few beers, Hitler’s propaganda was echoed as to who had it coming to them, who was living high on their sweating, broken backs and who should finally pay the price.  Poverty and the miserable life they led had to be somebody’s fault.

In America, President Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act, a much envied deed. “He knows that the sweat that runs off the back of the working masses comes at a cost, he knows what’s right.” They had forgotten that Otto von Bismarck had started the same retirement pension and National Health Insurance in the late nineteen century in Germany. Eventually, Adolf  Hitler promised to enhance the above, guaranteeing him an increase of friends. While in America, jazz became swing, and Sinclair Lewis penned the book, "It Can't Happen Here," it all started to happen in my home land.

I was four years old when my brother was born, after another girl before him. My dad was coming home from working in the fields when the neighbor lady asked him, “What is it, Karl, boy or another girl?” Don’t ask, he answered. The fallowing Sunday was baptism and when the priest asked what the name of the child will be and the answer was Karl, the priest opened the diaper to check because he did not want to stick a girl with a boy's name just because. Finally, Dad had the last laugh. 

Laughs were rare. In 1939, Hitler marched into Poland and soon one country after another fall under the heels of the Mad Dictator and his powerful army. With promises and lies, more and more young men were marching to certain death. That was my early childhood, poverty and war.

Maria Egel writes

A Young Girl's War and Peace - Part Two 

My first teacher, tall and blond, with a Swastika on her starched, white blouse, told us that our Bavarian greeting of “Gruess Gott” was no longer allowed, and that from now on it would be “Heil Hitler” to honor our great Fuehrer. We practiced this new greeting until we all had the salute's right angle and the right height. I was a first grader.

Our teacher told us that the sacrifices the German people had to make was due to ”them.” They betrayed the goodness of Germany, they became rich at our expense, they trampled on our trust, they had no other name, they, of course were the Jews.

She told us one day that she would make us strong and brave, worthy to be Hitler Youth, children who had no weaknesses or fears. One method of turning us into this strong and powerful new race was to start our education as soon as possible. On a dark and cold night, she had us, the primary classes, stay in the forest all night. The feeling of fun and adventure turned quickly into terror. She assigned each one of us to sit under a tree, far apart from each other, so we would feel swallowed up by the giant forest, rely only on ourselves. We were not allowed to leave or to speak to anyone all night.

Mom asked me to watch over my 5 year old sister, who had just entered Kindergarten. But where was she now, I wondered? “Dear God," I prayed, "let her fall asleep, and don’t lead the teacher her way.”

The familiar daytime forest soon became a hostile entity. The total blackness, the cries of the owls, the wind whistling through the tree tops, small animals scurrying through the woods, a fox creeping around a tree, all of it became the enemy, ready to devour us. By morning, fear had plastered us to our tree and we were soaked with our own urine and sweat, too exhausted to care whether we would be able to master the next feat.

Our teacher knew that none of us could swim, but that was no reason not to have us cross the wild mountain river on wet, slippery boulders. She made us stop halfway across to look into the deepest part of the churning water and commanded us “to defy death.” We all defied death by sheer luck.

Perhaps our teacher taught some of us bravery, the fourteen year olds, who were later sent to defend the bridges and borders of the Fatherland, the Fatherland, whose core had collapsed a long time ago. What did she teach me? Hatred and Fear!

One day, she made me stand for hours in front of the Fuehrer’s picture, my arm raised in the Hitler Salute, because I did not correctly answer her question, ”How far has our brave army advanced overnight?" So, I stood. My woolen stockings itched behind my knees, but I was not able to scratch. I remembered how wrinkled and not so clean my skirt was, now a show for the whole class. To keep my thoughts from having to go to the bathroom, I counted all my ugly freckles, pretending they were soldiers marching toward the enemy, my teacher.

A peculiar mix of emotions wormed itself into our lives. The excitement of marching bands, soldiers in grey uniforms and shiny black boots, singing songs of comradery, and colorful banners flying in the wind was covering the anxiety of ever more young men finding their graves on foreign soil. 

While we children ran alongside the soldiers, throwing kisses at them, the grown ups watched behind closed curtains. Later, when I described such an event to my mom, she asked me, ”What if those marching boots were after you?” From that moment on, without knowing it, a part of me was always on the run with every Polish, Gypsy and Jewish child. Much later I found out that they all fell under the merciless heels of the Nazis and that I alone survived.

Maria Egel writes

A Young Girl's War and Peace - Part Three 

Dad was the only young man in the village who was not drafted into the army. He had lost his right thumb and a bit of a finger while showing off his very own electric saw with a bit too much enthusiasm. He was a farmer in summer and a wagonwright in winter. His assignment was to keep the meager existence of the surrounding farming villages alive. That, and being unable to pull the trigger of a gun, kept him from becoming a soldier. One of his nightly duties was to walk through the village to make sure it was swallowed up by total darkness. Every bit of light that showed through the cracks of the window covers had to be reported and corrected before the enemy could find us.

I loved to accompany Dad on this job. His rough, calloused hands held mine tightly and I felt safe. We talked, and I filtered out the things that I had to forget quickly so that I would never betray him. Dad thought the “blindfolded” houses looked like “has-been movie stars” hiding behind dark glasses. He thought the best way to keep the enemy away was to show them our poverty, not to hide it.

I once asked Dad why we suddenly had so many enemies. “It is like cocks in a barn yard,” he said. “The more cornered they feel, the uglier they get. Once they have conquered a little scratching place, they want the whole yard, that is where we are now.” 

He was worried about the government inspector giving the farmers a hard time, because they could never produce their quota of eggs, milk and wheat. If you had two cows, so many liters of milk had to be delivered to the “central” station. The same was true for eggs. “Hitler might have programmed us people,” he said, “but the cows still don’t give milk while carrying a calf, and the hens still stop laying eggs through the cold winter months. They continue to do their things as always– but Maria, what happened to us, what happened to us?” We were totally snowed in and Dad said the village reminded him of "a giant bear in apparent hibernation” but always, always listening.

On one of our nightly trips, Dad thanked me for helping Mama carry the books to the village square to be burned. Papa knew that Mama and I brought all the wrong books to feed the fire and that we hid a couple in the straw stuffed mattress. We had so few books, a mere armful. The young officer, in his steel gray uniform with eyes to match, told Mama, "None of your books are on the list to be burned." “Oh” mama said innocently, “we brought them all, we did not want to make a mistake,” as she quickly pocketed the slip of paper that would keep further inspection at bay for a while. Mama lied, and she trusted me with her lie. I knew that hidden under her mattress was her poetry book by Heinrich Heine, a Jew.

One afternoon, while my parents were working in the fields and I was home alone babysitting my two younger siblings, two Gestapo men came to the house, accompanied by a local man who was supposed to be our friend. Not so long ago, my sister and I would braid his beautiful long beard when he came to sit at our supper table. Now, his face was clean shaven and he brought strangers into our home, knowing that my parents were not at home. “Girl, we know that your father has hidden something, show us where,” demanded one of the strangers. I did know where, because a couple of nights before I was awakened by a noise and I peeked out the window and saw my dad bury something in the garden. “Show us the place,” he said roughly, pulling on my braids. My tongue would not co-operate to form words, until one of the men grabbed my sleeping baby brother by his feet and let him dangle upside down and I heard his piercing cry.

I showed the men the freshly worked ground and there they found a sack of seedling potatoes Dad was trying to save for planting in the spring. Dad was taken away for interrogation and held for a week. He never told us children what happened during that time, we only knew that he had great difficulty walking for a long time. 

One day, an important document was delivered to our house. It said that a cargo of people was on the way to our village and Dad was to distribute them on the farms and keep a record of them. 

They were from Poland, and because the German men were fighting at some front, probably their very front, they were picked up and sent here to help on the farms. Mama read the letter and said, "Please don’t bring any of them home. If they know farm work, they should be home taking care of their own fields, and if they do not, what help would they be to us? We cannot afford to feed an extra mouth."

We children fallowed Dad to see the newcomers. A truckload of people arrived, young men and women, sad looking, tired and frightened. Their heads were shaved and all wore an I.D. tag around the neck. Our shameless staring must have made them feel like they were animals in the zoo.

By evening, all but one was placed. His name tag said “Durza Domna.” He sat curled up in the corner all by himself. Even the others on the truck avoided him. Was he dead? My dad gently poked his shoulders and he lifted his face. It was full of open, seeping sores, and he was dirty and smelled awful. He went home with us. Why did Dad not pick the young lady with the pretty smile, or any one else for that matter?  Mama won’t like this. Mama took one look at Durza Domna, put a large pot of water on the stove and readied the wooden bathtub in Dad’s workshop. Soon, bathed and dressed in Dad’s clean overalls and flannel shirt, he sat at the table and practically inhaled our leftover supper, potato soup and black bread, our usual fare. We called him “Domneck,” but how we got to that name, I don’t remember. 

We had a tree in the garden Mama called the “balsam tree.” From its sticky blossoms and alcohol, she would make every possible healing potion. Soon, his many sores healed, and Mama said, "With a little love from us the unseen wounds will heal also." Domneck was always afraid of our dad and was happiest when he could help Mom in the kitchen. Domneck would sit in the kitchen after the outdoor chores were done and became the best babysitter. He had a voice like an angel and those haunting, Polish melodies would tear our heart apart. He could not read or write and his signature was just an “X.” When we laughed at the idea that a grown man could not read or write or sign his own name, things we all could do as children, Mama gave us this reason:. “The world and the people in it have treated him so badly, they do not deserve to know his name.” Besides, she said, "His signature is his beautiful voice.”

Our daily lives became even more secretive and shabby. Mama would encourage Dad, “Go, sit with your friends for a while” and then she would worry until she could hear the echo of his wooden shoes coming down the street. Dad and his friends had been listening to BBC, a crime punishable with life.

Slowly, the village became packed with refugees from bombed out cities all over Germany. Russian and American armies were galloping toward us from opposite directions. Domneck, who had learned a little German, would tell Mama how scared he was of the Russians, so we all hoped it would be the Americans who would reach us first .

Maria Egel writes

A Young Girl's War and Peace - Part Four 

Hitler was dead. A white bed sheet was strung up on the church steeple, flapping in the wind.  It was to tell the world that we surrendered. Old Xaverl, with about four teeth left to hold a cold pipe in his mouth, sneered, “What do they think,we fight them off with, rotten cabbage?” His pipe was as cold as his hands; he had run out of tobacco years ago.

The village church was packed with women, children and a few old men. We were praying that the American Army should reach us before the Russians did. Our village lies deep in the Bavarian Woods, about twenty miles from the Czech border, so we were told it could be either one. But we knew one or the other would reach us within hours. Often, it was only the priest's voice that carried on, as we were too frightened to answer even with an "Amen".

Suddenly our waiting was over. The noise of the heavy tanks coming up the unpaved road drowned out everything else. After a short paralysis caused by fear, our priest left the altar and headed toward the exit and we followed, scared, but needing to know who was at the other side of the door.

It seemed neither Russia nor America had found us, but Africa. Huge tanks as far as the eye could see filled with black men. We learned later that they were African–American soldiers and that they were segregated from the white army. Until that moment, we had only seen black faces in books and through the eyes of the missionaries. But here they were in our village shouting in a language unfamiliar to us. They must have noticed our fear, because as they jumped off the tanks, grinning, they started throwing little packages at us children. We stood there frozen and watched while one of the soldiers, unwrapping something, popped it in his mouth and chewed on it vigorously, his face one big smile. The first brave one among us was ten year old George. Imitating the soldier, he ripped the paper open, put the same pink something in his mouth and started grinning from ear to ear. We needed no other invitation, and quickly we all fell in love with something strange but oh so delightful, called chewing gum. One of so many firsts!  

The African–American soldiers put up tents outside the village, right where the Russian prisoners were kept a few month earlier. In the evening, they came to collect the firewood that was stacked in front of each house. The old farmers were not happy about that, but they also knew how cold those tents must be, unprotected from that icy Bavarian wind.

Months later their white counterparts arrived. They moved into the farmhouses and came equipped with bunk beds and huge duffle bags. We had twelve men taking over our upstairs bedrooms. My dad was angry, my mom scared, and we kids walked around with our mouths agape. First we saw men as black as coal, and now we were sharing our home with total strangers. What frightened Mom was that none of us spoke or understood this strange language, "English," that none of our doors had locks on them, that she had two teenage daughters to protect, seven children to keep an eye on, and now had a platoon of American solders under the same roof. Our main room was the living-dining room and kitchen, and now it became the sleeping quarters for seven kids. Our mattresses, straw stuffed burlap sacks, were lined up, wall to wall.

Sitting around the supper table one evening, Mama mentioned that she now had a photo of each soldier’s family. I was impressed, wondering how she was able to do that without speaking their language, but our dad was less complementary. "Why in the world do you want pictures of total strangers?" My mom smiled and said, "Now that I have seen that somewhere in America there is a wife, a child, or sweetheart waiting for them, they are no longer such strangers and we need to be less afraid."

My father was a wagon master and one of the solders was always in his workshop, making a nuisance of himself. The other soldiers called him "Pitcher." When he would find a round piece of wood, a couple of feet long, he would run into the yard and swing it like crazy. Soon my dad got to know which hunks of wood would keep the crazy American happy and out of his workshop. Pitcher would swing the piece of wood and we would watch and giggle after realizing that he was not going to clobber us with it. We did not know of baseball then, and to this day every pitcher I see is the one practicing his swing in our village.

Our favorite soldier by far was a man they called "Reese." He was a skinny little guy, who was never able to stand still. We wondered how he could march and we imitated his dancing walk. He took his rifle wherever he went, even to the outhouse. The word "Riese" in German means giant, so we knew it had to be his nickname.

The months went by quickly. The outside world was still in great turmoil but in our house we settled down to a peculiar but peaceful life with this sudden extended family. Many memories crowd into that year, but by far the most exciting and lingering is that of Christmas Eve.

 

The freshly cut evergreen tree was standing in the corner, all dressed up with homemade decorations, its candles lit. A huge pot of potato soup was bubbling on the wood–fired stove, while pumpernickel bread was cooling on the kitchen counter. My parents thought the men living above us would be homesick on this special evening, so Mom asked me to go upstairs and invite the soldiers to join us for supper. How in the world would I manage that? I was eleven years old. My timid knocking was drowned out by the ruckus and laughter of the men, but when the door suddenly opened, I forgot what I was there for. Finally I got my wits together and started waving my hands like crazy while walking backwards, hopefully indicating that they should follow me. To my amazement and pride they understood my wild gestures and I felt like a shepherd.

Mom pointed at the soup and bread and with big smiles they acknowledged the invitation. One of the soldiers went to fetch their mess kits and after a second thought handed them out to us kids. For the first time we children ate soup out of individual dishes, while the soldiers ate from the big communal soup bowls. On of the men pointed at a piece of potato on his spoon, then cupped his hands to indicate a whole potato. After repeating this gesture several times, it was my six year old brother Karl who understood his quest. "Mom, I think he wants a whole potato?” Well, that was one of the few things we could offer, if Karl was right. Then the feasting began.  Reese put a big pot on the stove, melting down something white from a can, while another soldier started peeling potatoes. Usually this was my job, pealing the potatoes for the Sunday dumplings, and I was good at it. I even had a special little knife to do the job. But the soldiers had a gadget that was amazing. It would skim over the potato, taking only the skin, without ever cutting their fingers. It was called a "Potato Peeler," and they left it for me at their departure.

But, I am digressing from the important part of my story. Reese sliced the potatoes thinly then dropped them into the melted hot stuff, after a few minutes removed and drained them on newspaper, sprinkled them with a little salt and served us our very first "POTATO CHIP."  Our hands and mouths were soon slippery with fat, our eyes shone and our taste buds danced with sheer delight. We never ate anything so delicious, and to think we had all the makings for it in our very own cellar.

One of the soldiers noticed the special ornaments hanging on the tree, which Mom had made out of wood shavings and the photos of the soldiers' families. The pleasure over that small kindness showed on their faces. Our dad, encouraged by the generous sharing of the Americans' "Jack Daniels" started singing "Stille Nacht." We kids knew that Dad could not sing and quickly chimed in to help him out. When the soldiers recognized the tune they joined in, singing "Silent Night." The walls of our old house vibrated with good cheer. The village was lying isolated and pillowed in deep snow. The howling mountain wind accompanied the strange mixture of voices in different languages. A celebration of Christmas, and it heralded in a new and promising year.

"Silent Night" was followed by many more American songs, but one in particular made the tears flow. Many years later, after coming to America, I heard it again.  It was called "Home on the Range".

That night we children laid curled up next to each other, far away from black marching jackboots and safely surrounded by our very own army of homesick soldiers. That night, we dreamed of potato chips and roaming antelopes and a far away land.

Maria Egel writes

For my circle of friends around the AIDS Quilting Table.

In celebrating life
we give homage to those
whose souls have already soared
across the sky

In celebrating love
we gather from it strength and joy
while treating life as the fragile gift it is

In celebrating humanity
we encircle our differences
which vibrate like the brilliance of an
autumn tree

In celebrating life-­‐we live.

 

Maria Egel writes

A Memory 

When there are seven children in a family, it is a rarity to have your mom all to yourself. The last time I had that privilege was on a beautiful fall day in 1947, because Mom died that winter. Instead of herding the obstreperous cows, strung out from being in the barn all year, a job I hated, the two of us worked in the potato field, gathering the stray potatoes that were overlooked at the original harvest. I loved that chore. The sun was beaming down at us warmly but without its hot-summer sting. Socks and shoes tossed aside, the rich soil was squishing between our toes. The forest next to the field had started its changes for its fall garment, the leaves, a splendid exhibition of yellows, browns and golds. A bunch of forget-me-nots, misplaced at the edge of the field, were bravely defying the end of summer and swaying their fragile stems in the noon breeze. Our nostrils inhaled the mysterious earthen smell and from far away, we heard the occasional crack of a plowman’s whip. Then the church bells rang out the noon blessing and everyone stopped for lunch. God himself took a moment to smile kindle down on His world.

Mom and I raked the dried potato vines together, and from it built a fire. When it was ablaze we threw some of the bigger potatoes into it, the small ones we packed to be stored for the pigs. This task was repeated on every potato field around the village, making the air a bit dense with smoke, but no one minded a little drift of it into the eyes. The aroma from the potatoes baking had made us so hungry, that the taste buds started dancing way before they were ready to eat. If you have never eaten potatoes baked in an open fire, you don’t know what you are missing. First, there is the delicious taste and than the great fun of eating them. Your hands and face get coal black from their charred skin and on the way home, everybody you meet will have the tell-tell signs of their best autumn meal.

After lunch mom and I rested. We sat on a burlap sack and I curled up next her, my head cradled in her lap. Above us the thrushes and finches gave their free daily concert, and mom’s hands stroked gently over my hair while she told me this beautiful story. She told me that soon my body would be changing just as it would for all the millions of girls around the world and, that I would be taking my first step toward becoming a woman. My body would built a special cushion inside me that would be able to protect and nourish a baby but, until I was a fully grown woman and ready to have one, that cushion would dissolve every month, and when that time came, she cautioned, I might feel some ache.

Ache, I would easily be able to handle, it was pain I was not friends with, but it was always able to find me. Not so long ago I had been running through the yard, barefoot as always, practicing my “Olympic Long Jump,” leaping over a row of wooden boxes, and missed, landing on a rusty nail. Papa needed a plier to pull it out. When I fell out of the cherry tree, right onto the barbwire fence, I could not even limp in papa's presence because we were forbidden to climb that tree, half its roots dead, hanging limply over an open quarry. Its lure was, that it grew the sweetest cherries. Pain I felt, when my appendix busted and papa had to take me the hospital on horseback, an hour away from our village.

Mom told me when that big day came we would celebrate the occasion. We celebrated everything!  We celebrated when the barn cat had kittens, the shortest and longest day of the year, a new calf being born, and even the day, when my little brother finally learned how to tie his shoes. We celebrated with milk and black bread, topped with fresh berries or cucumbers, or anything that was in season. We would be dancing and singing and created music by clapping together the lids of cooking pots. When there are seven children in the family, it does not take much too create a party.  Papa had often claimed that he had the silliest family in the world.

Mom died that same year in December, a few days before Christmas, not yet 39 years old. She had a brain tumor. After her death, we no longer found too many reasons to celebrate. So, when my big day finally arrived it would no longer be so important. I did not feel shame or fear as some of my girlfriends did, because I remembered every word mom told me that day. I even remembered her smiling down at me when I told her that our bodies were pretty smart to practice every month until it got it just right and how happy I would be to become a woman, just like her.

I would have liked a little attention though, a hug, or my sister telling me I could sit quietly in my hide-out to read. But on that very same day, every thing went haywire. Our best milk-cow decided to calf and she was in trouble. My oldest sister Betty, just 17, a teenager herself, could handle our needs and fears pretty well, but on that day she was overwhelmed. My four-year-old brother had been stuffing cracked walnuts up his nose and he screamed like a stuck piglet. The harder we tried to get the mess out of his nose, the more we seemed to clog it. The little pieces of shells were scratching his nose until it bled. His screaming scared the neighbor’s dog so much that he started to chase him around the yard. With all the running to get away from the dog, his nose unplugged all by itself. With that entire travesty we had forgotten about the cow until a loud bellowing from the barn brought her to our to attention.  Betty gave the commands to us, her troops. Nannerl went to the Mayor's office, who had the only phone in the village, to call for the vet. Calling the vet was a rarity, because he costs money we did not have. Agnes was sent to get papa, who was in the forest cutting firewood, and I had to run to the store to get a bar of soap because our homemade soap would not do for the fine doctor. Our soap, a concoction of tallow and lye, felt like rubbing a rough brick against your skin, but the brick had a nicer smell.

I did not mind running to the store that day because I had something to prove. I had to pass the Schneiders' house, who had the meanest gander in the whole wide world. He would never bother grown-ups or boys, only girls. I could never figure out what had made that dumb gander so smart. He was a skirt chaser! Every girl in the village had black and blue marks on their calves from his vicious bite. Well, on that day I was no longer just any girl, I had became, almost, a woman. So, when I had to pass the Schneiders' fence, I almost thumbed my nose at him, and even left my stick at home, no longer needed. But then I heard his mean screech and I could almost feel his wings puffing up to help him get over the fence. Before I knew it, he had clamped his peak into my calves so deeply that he had drawn blood. I started to scream, and my almost “womanhood” had collapsed right back into being nothing more than a scared girl. My screams awakened Rosa Krohn from her nap, resting on her front stoop. She came running to help me out, screaming as loudly as I, all the time swinging her broomstick. She had to hit that stubborn gander several times before he finally let go.

I have to explain about Rosa and her broomstick.We kids had never been very kind to her; in fact, behind her back we had been calling her “the witch.” She had a badly deformed back and ugly purple warts on one side of her nose, jaundiced eyes, and almost no hair. But here she was, rescuing me from that beast! After the gander ran away, defeated, she took my hand and walked me into her kitchen. It smelled so nice there; it had a ”peace” smell, a comforting “mother”smell, and I started crying. She understood that I was not just crying about my sore leg but my whole twelve year old life that had suddenly gone so wrong. Over apple pie and milk I asked why the gander seemed to be chasing only after girls. It had nothing to do with gender, she told me, but the fact that boys and men were wearing trousers, women long skirts, and only girls flashed their legs unprotected.And I had been calling the gander dumb? When we talked about my mom, she too had tears in her eyes, missing her friendship and kindness. I had been too young to go through that natural separation and rebellion that daughters sometimes have with their mothers and then death came and did it mercilessly. All this talking about mom made me remember how she had planned a celebration for me and here I sat doing just that, celebrating, and eating apple pie, drinking milk, and making a friend.

The gander might chase me again tomorrow, and I might still be too much of a girl not to be looking over my shoulder when passing his fence, but I was grown up enough to make a new friend for life. Sunday afternoons Rosa and I would be sitting in the sun, its rays comforting her aching bones, and she would tell me stories or I would be reading to her. Her eyesight had gone bad, and she could not afford glasses. She, treasure chest of wisdom and I, the young girl so eager to learn, had been passing each other daily without ever connecting. The two of us had always planned to make “Roast Goose” out of that fiend but never got to it, perhaps because we both knew we owed him thanks.

The doctor managed without the more delicate soap, my sister happily took the unspent money back, the cow and calf were doing fine, and I just knew that mom was near us.

Maria Egel writes

I AM CHICAGO

And like an old lover you return to me,

roll over me, into me.

You inhale my many spices

embrace my spidery arms of fog,

and feel safe in my cocoon.

You frolic on my green vistas

and wash away your grime

in the waters of my lake.

My many veins carry you to and fro,

to the very outskirts of my borders.

Did you miss me? My music?

The swelling notes of Bach,

The warbled blues,

Hard rock, hot jazz,

My hum, my growl, my heartbeat?

Did you miss the many colors of my seasonal hats?

My winter coats not always white and sterile?

My explosions of colors on a hot summer day?

My spiraling towers sun bathed before dipping

into the night's thousand other illuminations?

You did not miss my darker side I know

The wailing sirens summoned by an angry shot

Fleeting footsteps, a cry for help, the stink of fear

That too is life, my life

I know the homeless hustle for a buck

and sex is sold as love

I have my glitter and my shame

but through it all I shine

and lure you back as I know I could

for I am Chicago.

Maria Egel writes

TERRORISTS

With you at the helm we have become terrorists

we see the hidden shadows, black teeth dripping with greed

and so does the world.

You spout forth words of love and freedom

while tightening the noose, aiming to maim.

Sanctity of life you preach

protector of sterile ova, saved in test tubes

waiting to be flushed into the sea

while innocence is fodder for your guns.

You promise progress and democracy

while doling out despair.

How do you outrun the nightmares of your sleep?

We have become docile cowards.

Not for the first time in the history of man.

But, it is all for the betterment of humankind you say,

No, it is just terror

hiding under the mantle of different colors.

It went from hooded white

scurrying like rats to the pitch black night

to the philosophy of “red”

and its menacing echos

to sharp greys and black boots,

trampling all decency

to black figures, strapped with pounds of death

and now,

to all hues of brown and green,

the colors of our mother earth

AND SHE KEEPS ON WEEPING