Footprints

The Guest

They were still fixing the road
even though Grandfather wanted it to be ready
before he arrived
but the children
kept making footprints in the tarmac.
The women were packing parcels
still convinced
that you can't find food in Germany
not real food.

And then my cousin: always the fool
telling stories
about his older brother
who came home again
and built a palace with the money he made
everyone listening and nodding.
They seemed to forget him sitting there
my brother
the honoured guest.

But how could I forget him
when we always walked together
in step along the road.
we try to do that now
but find our shoulders
bumping instead
as we climb along the path
up the mountain
to gather berries.

‍

The Friend

I picked him up from the airport
with flowers and chocolates
spring had arrived without him
but he brought out mountain fruits
that he had collected at home
and a photo of his brother
two little boys of equal height
smiling in front of date palms
and bare rocky mountains
but he was quiet
perhaps missing that sense
of effortless belonging
Heimweh

‍

German Footprints

I walk along the street
that I had walked a thousand times before
but everything was like a dream
where something seems just slightly wrong -
was the paint there always peeling?
That shop front must be new?
The sounds and smells,
a part of me,
strange.

You walk like a German now, they say,
do they walk differently, I wonder,
I suppose they must.
I try to speak their language - our language -
but we have travelled along paths
that separated slowly
and there,
as I remember it,
is gone.

I walk along those streets again -
knowing I will never stay -
Now I see,
my roots have grown so broad
and give me strength.
and I smile at the peeling paint,
the new shop front,
and my German footprints
on the freshly tarmac’d road.