Career

22/12/2013

Career

 

I am a poet unrenowned,

 Unpublished and unsung.

I’ve scribbled verses as a boy,

And as nonagenarian.

 

The question is; If I am not     

A poet, writer or the like,

What am I then? I’d better think

Of all the roads on which I hiked..

 

A chorus of well-meaning friends

Were resonant I should attend

A university abroad

With glittering titles at the end.

 

To study law in Switzerland?

To practise law? This was too much!

This thought was squashed at birth and yet

I think I could impress a judge.

 

Well then, this very clever boy

Should study languages, become

A highly skilled interpreter …

Rejected (though it would be fun).

 

Parental counsel and suggestions

Began to highlight engineering

For Jews in Nazi Germany

As the most valuable training.

 

I acquiesced. My father’s contacts

Got me a job as ‘Volunteer’,

To learn the rudiments of turning

And fitting iron, brass, and steel.

 

Kristallnacht spelt the bitter end,

My father was arrested, shipped

To Buchenwald – but did not speak

Of how his dignity was stripped.

 

Some six months later we arrived

In Melbourne, and within a month

I was apprenticed to become

A turner, fitter, and so on.

 

I rose to very moderate heights

While making things in brass and steel,

But on retirement I raced

To where at home I truly feel.

 

I read, I listened, and I wrote

About my thoughts. And now it seems.

I had performed the miracle

Of catching up on youthful dreams.