…And It Was Her Summer
“Go back to the children’s home", she
said,
"I have no work and
can’t afford to keep you”.
One late June afternoon she sat on a
bench
with a man I didn’t know.
The man smiled—I
didn’t like him, but
took the coins he gave me
to buy an ice–cream for I was still
hanging about—
so mother got up and slapped me across the face.
”Get lost you stupid boy!” My face was burning—I threw the
coins
into the lake and ran away. When I stopped running it was night
and I could see sheep in a field; I was tired and cold and thought
of
seeking shelter in a little wooden church,
but it smelt of fear and
I thought of ghosts—
so I walked on 'till I came to a workman’s
hut
near the road.
It was easy to get in; here the
smell was of coffee
and kind men in overalls, perhaps one of them was my father?
It was morning in warm sunlight when they came—
they were not
angry, but gave me milk and bread
and showed me the quickest
way to get home.
The sky that day was enormous and from a hill
I looked down to the town. I could see the school building.
It
must
have been early—no children
were in the yard;
but I just sat there and
could not understand
why my mother didn’t want to see me.
Read Additional poems by Jan Oskar Hansen in the May / June
2009 Sketchbook.
