November 15, 2015

Exchanging Portraits (Part 55)


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Leipzig, Germany, December 13, 1944. My Mom's friend wrote:
Oh how we could use some luck,
if only a little
if only as much as
the blooming flower on the window ...
The friend's imagery derives from a winter incident Mom recalls. The barracks in which Mom stayed had no central heating.* Mom kept a vase on the window sill. Once, although the water in the vase froze overnight, the flower kept blooming.

*Mom would heat an iron before going to sleep, and she placed it on the mattress so the bedding warmed.

1 comment:

edutcher said...

That thing about warming a bed is an old chestnut IIRC, You something like it occasionally in old movies.

PS Very pretty girl.

She has that rose petal mouth I've noticed among some Eastern European women.

PPS Her little poem sounds like kids waiting to be adopted.