Izabel Sonia Ganz

A birthday card from Warsaw

If I were going to write
a birthday card to myself
I would make ink with the soot
scraped from walls of burned houses
mixing it into sweet wine
from bottles broken by bombs
that shattered bricks and tore lives.

The quill pen I would fashion
from feather of a pigeon
that flew by fifth floor window
where a small frightened figure
under my bed lay silent
till dark night and hushed voices
hid her transfer to safety.

I would write it in English
learned in lessons concealed
as only cooking classes
while in streets below boots marched
stomping in tact with language
that spelled death and destruction
in lilting songs of Marlene.

The stamp I would put on the card
bleached white by tears of mourning
stained red with blood of city
that would not die - the Phoenix -
by no post could be cancelled;
the card would be delivered
every year on my birthday.

Izabel Sonia Ganz was born quite some time ago in Warsaw, Poland and wrote poetry in Polish and French first. She now speaks six languages and lives in the Southwest with her cat Magick. Her poems, written in a variety of forms and styles, have been and are being published on and off the internet (among others in Gravity, Agnieszka's Dowry, The Free Cuisenart, A Writer's Choice Literary Journal, Mind Fire, Poetry Repair Shop, Milestones Press). She enjoys creating colorful showcases for her poems and illustrating them with pictures at "The Crone's Poetry Pages".