Lena Kallergi
Poem for Dane Zajc
If our ancestors are people
whose homes we can visit
after they’re gone,
if we can sleep in their beds
and open their windows
to look at the tree they have looked at
in the afternoons,
and keep an image in our heads
of the same wardrobe,
the same small balcony,
and if their portraits on the walls
-honorary-
may haunt us in a sleepless night,
if our families are people
we never know well enough
though we need
to keep searching for details,
to look online for more of their words
in a language we understand,
and if we need to be able
to spell and articulate
their name correctly -
then you are my lost uncle
my mother’s distant cousin
my grandfather’s mysterious friend:
he mentioned you sometimes
but my mind wandered.
Then, you never really left this place
where I have been allowed to stay
for a few summer days
because we loved the same art form.
Then
I, a daughter you never met,
inside your last home
think about you,
write to you.