April Poetry | When I Was Small

When I Was Small

by Jens Kruse

When I was small
my grandfather would take me by the hand
and walk with me
for hours
through his beloved city, Hamburg.

I liked his calloused hand,
his steady stride,
but mostly I liked his voice.

As he walked
He would tell me stories:

Of marching into Russia,
of plundering villages,
of being a prisoner-of-war,
of being made to work
near the polar circle,
building the Murmansk railroad.

Of how he was put into cattle cars
that rolled for days and days
became encased in ice,
ice that shattered and melted
as they rolled into the Crimea.

Of how in Odessa he stowed away
on a freighter
and finally made it back to Hamburg.

Of how on another ship,
this one to New York City,
he tried to escape
from post-war Germany’s chaos.
.
Of how he worked
at the Singer sewing machine factory
in Hoboken, New Jersey,
trying to make a new life.

Of how he got homesick
and returned
to his wife and small children,
working his way back
on a steamer
as dishwasher, second class.

Of how, back in Hamburg, he built ships
and fought the Nazis
and was lucky to live through
“Blood Sunday” while
many of his neighbors were killed.

Of how, when he was almost 50,
the Nazis tried to draft him
for another war in Russia
and he eluded them
by drinking strong coffee
and running up the stairs
to the medical examiner’s room,
presenting himself with a racing heart.

Thus he avoided going to war again,
but the war came to him:
his oldest son a POW of the Russians,
his youngest son wounded,
bombings during the day,
bombings during the night.

And then, in late July of 1943,
when “Operation Gomorrha”
was so successful
that people were,

so he told me —

while walking steadily,
speaking calmly,
holding my hand firmly —

stuck in the asphalt,
burning like torches,
that they
suffocated in their shelters
as the firestorm above them
made Hamburg
like the sun-facing side
of the planet Mercury.

Now that I am no longer small
I still feel his hand
still hear his voice
still listen to his stories
and am more afraid than
when I was small.

© Jens Kruse