7: THE ÉMIGRÉE - CAROL RUMENS

émigrée

french for emigrant (female)

there once was a country …

child story, innocence, more to say

I never saw it that November which, I am told, comes to the mildest city

distance between herself and the city, bad weather (negativity) came to the city - she wasn’t there long enough to see bad weather

the worst news I receive of it cannot break my original view

agrressive, separation, determination (quote)

I am branded by an impression of sunlight

she can’t get rid of her links to it, she never fully knew it, her own interpretation of it

the graceful slopes glow even clearer as time rolls its tanks and the frontiers rise between us, close like waves

military language, natural beauty remains in the country, metaphor, simile

that child’s vocabulary I carried here like a hollow doll

only has some of her culture, she is missing a part of herself, simile

opens and spills a grammar. Soon I shall have every coloured molecule of it

rules of language, accident + embarrassment, improper grammar, complex words

it may by now be a lie, banned by the state but I can’t get it off my tongue

still has links to her country, her country has changed, she can’t go back to the links

my city comes to me in its own white plane. It lies down in front of me, docile as paper: I comb its hair and love its shining eyes

personification, peaceful, like family - community / gives her joy and creativity

my city takes me dancing through the city/ of walls

enjambment - protection, culture gives her strength, not her city, volta

they accuse me of being dark in their free city

skin tone, juxtaposition to walls - rules and standards, nit her city

my city hides behind me

Shame about her identity

my shadow falls as evidence of sunlight

her existence is proof of what her city once was

my memory of it is sunlight-clear/ impression of sunlight/ It tastes of sunlight/ evidence of sunlight

light/sunlight = city before, repetition

it may be at war, it may be sick with tyrants

her city is infected, not the way it is meant to be

extol

to praise, revere

fabricate

to make up, invent

forsake

to give up, renounce