Sugihara and the Dead Girl

Sometimes as I teach,

the lesson I'm trying to convey crystallises I think

more profoundly for me than it does for my students.

Today we were covering an article about Chiune Sugihara,

a Japanese diplomat in Lithuania during World War 2.

He issued more than 6000 visas for Jews

who had fled Poland allowing them to escape the encroaching Nazis,

and to enter Japan where they would be able to wait out the war,

decently treated by the Japanese.

Just before I tried to teach this lesson,

I had looked at one of the most affecting photographs I've ever seen;

of a drowned girl, hopelessly just below the clear calm surface of the Mediterranean.

I could tell from her proportions that she was about the same age as Leah-Lyd. (three)

She was in colourful, hopeful clothes;

African Sunday bests is what they brought to mind.

By most accounts, Chiune Sugihara

was someone who shied away from the fame his heroism had won him.

In fact, he may have died in obscurity

were he not sought out by one of the thousands he had saved.

A year before he died in 1986,

he made a speech where he shed some light on his motives

for putting his and his family's safety aside to help the refugees in Lithuania.

He said,

"It is the kind of sentiment anyone would have when he actually sees the refugees face to face, begging with tears in their eyes. He just cannot help but sympathise with them."

On Edge

Here’s to the

putridity of fish sauce

in Thai cooking,

and to the acerbic glances

of utter loathing

we afford each other

from time to time.

Like the iota of indole

that apparently

forms the base

of the finest perfumes,

or conversely,

the streak of likability

that characterises

the most convincing villains,

I have a feeling this gives us an edge.

Lickle More

Jerk chicken,

ackee and saltfish,

rice and peas

with two sides

of purple coleslaw,

and argument

over the importance

or lack thereof,

of Marvel movies.

We sit at

metallic tables and chairs

outside Lickle More

in Hove;

elbows on the little wall

of the cemetery

in the first

heat bearing

beams of spring.

Grape soda for you

and ginger beer for me,

as the debate

shifts to the origins

of Spiderman and

his place in Stan Lee’s

universe.

I’m sure you’re right;

I’m clutching at straws

as your size tens

shoo away a

gangster pigeon;

you tend to know

more than I do these days.

St Joseph's

St Joseph’s

Junior High,

was a lot smaller

than I’d

remembered

it being.

The school entrance,

that old cusp,

twenty five years on,

stood reduced to a mere gate.

This Catholic bud of

embellishment;

cracking terracotta

and peeling

layers of fiction,

was ultimately

just a building,

where I’d attended school.

Body and Soul

She died in fifty-nine,

body and soul;

yet even so

I’ve fallen hard

for the scratches

and echos

that endure

from her short

hard time here.

She died in New York

where I’ve never been,

yet I smell the Downbeat;

the smoke burns my eyes

as Lady sings the blues.  

The /fɑːl/

I’d heard of a swimmer,

from you I think,

who’d attempted

to cross the Vaal.

As a boy

it had scared me;

the river had a menace

no number of apparently

playful voices could quell.

A spinning tree in its water

would belie its murky calm,

as would the clicking loose

of dry grass on its bank,

or the slight spine in the middle,

where the ravenous current

unable to camouflage fully

would bristle like a surfacing fish.

I remember a ball,

barely touching its surface,

conspiring with river and breeze

to drown an Afrikaans girl.

Her father, with a Lion

in one hand,

had pulled her back from the brink;

I studied that ball for some time.

I’d heard of a swimmer,

from you I think,

who’d attempted

to cross the Vaal.

4/4/2018

Eighteen years ago

in a field,

on the southern most

tip of Taiwan,

on this very night,

I turned around

and made braver

by beer,

began a conversation

with someone

that would turn out to

be you my love.

That evening

I tried to kiss you;

you thought I had something to say

as I leant in.

I still cringe.