You will come back...

“We draw a picture of every day and play the main role in a life story, choosing   actors, decorations for more or less attractive plot. It just seems that all events happen spontaneously; all conceived facts lead along the paths towards the present day. These are “seeds” planted so long ago that we forgot about the crops growing on the “garden bed” of living and today is the time of harvesting. All we created in the past has an ability to return like a boomerang which falls back to our feet”.


“Just start writing and thin thread will be pulled out the cotton ball" – promised my grandfather, who always wanted to continue the family tradition. There, in the postwar years, the family of my father survived, thanks to a special insightful, poetic and musical talent of my grandmother, Alevtina.

In lean years she gathered seeds of elm trees, and grinding them into some kind of flour, cooked bread-like tortillas. When her four kids were on the brink of exhaustion, Alevtina had a night dream - a strange woman in a white gown held out her hands and gave her elm seeds. Awakened, Alevtina went to the garden path and found lots of elm coins-seeds similar to the ones she saw in the mystical woman hands.
Unpretentious food was always accompanied by songs on the guitar and poems. It turned out into a real celebration of survival and triumph of the spirit, where happiness and misfortune twiddled their strange dances in a small town called Vernyi, which meant Faithful City.
It was so long ago, but all stories remained in a genetic memory.

In my prosperous childhood, grandma’s music and the magic of words that slowly came to define my concept of "poetry” took an important and large place.

«By the smell touch - unknown archive -
Village spirit of wormwood,
                scent of blooming lindens»

An intertwined destiny of the allotted time, turning in a tangle of days, events and characters, continues into a long journey that we call Life. What to take in the luggage to surround one’s existence is an important choice. It seems simple - just start to believe in the materiality of a thought and in the ability to own the life script... for these, simply, begin to watch, listen, feel and remember…

Adelaide - the name of a new period of the novel.  Adelaide... Australia .. Alevtina - how many similarities and true ancient beauty in these names.
Poetry cannot be called “business", but, as under those postwar elms in the town of Vernyi, here remains the possibility to find salvation "seeds" of the soul, begin the cultivation of magical “crops” until everything begins to reincarnate in an unforgettable picture of reality and putting thoughts into words, meanings and sounds:
«Heavy shoulders of a hushed garden,
Scarlet color licks apple tree leaves
in a rainy day ...
In the palette of the past -
             buttery silk of late flowers
and amber-cut shirts of trees -
the old sense of autumn magic…»

Having left all precious values at the other end of the world, it seems that the ties between places, people and senses of life will break down into small fragments. Time has passed rapidly since there I first met Adelaide. It would be difficult to say better – this pensive city opened its gates and remained cordial, showing its dear guests all its hidden secrets

There was a real need to find a link or a tiny hook, allowing the heart to have hope: the same smell of rotting leaves, the dark alleys of parks, and clear morning freshness, which can emerge in the poetry of soul:

«You will come back and feel in contrast -
In a step away from the cold alchemy of life,
There are modest, quiet polite suburbs.
Try to live artlessly -
this place is surprisingly simple -
trams, bridges, shiny rivers
and twisted lattice of parks.
Here, heavens weave their fragile nests
in abandoned dusty attics...»

Campbelltown. This quiet place has magically resembled the distant Faithful City surrounded by mountains, where there was an amazing view over a misty green forest.
Linear Park with a running river, waterfalls, and reserves constitutes a piece of Paradise, where you can escape from the bustle city and feel at one with Nature.

But, much earlier, the name of the Faithful City was changed to Alma-Ata, which means "Father of Apples". Indeed, amazing apple trees, famous throughout the world, grew there. The “Apport” could weigh more, then 1 kilo each! The beautiful orchard of my grandpa was hijacked by Soviet authorities and turned it into state property. Such was the Soviet ideology – to allow for better control, all people should be equal and make up one grey crowd.

Modern time dictates new rules. The time of communism has passed and European capitalism has brought back passion for a good and comfortable life. Apple orchards have been cut down by fortune seekers for the sake of building fashionable houses and cottages for the new wealthy class.

But nature abhors a gross interference and the "lungs" of the Alma-Ata have ceased breathing. The new buildings have obscured the natural flow of wind so streets have sank into the smog.
Now, for a breath of fresh air, the city’s occupants have to wait for a rain or escape into the mountains...

Memories…

«Wake up.
Behind the fence, in the depth of a
shrouded garden, there is a leaking light from lanterns.
Night - cradle of hopes.
Crescent grins, compressing darkness,
falsetto of grumble garden wickets.
it is time to impose a foreword,
time to heal the futility,
Wake up on the dawn
where your life is not dressed
for the chill autumn weather»

The Torrens River - a sign of life, nurturing myriads of living creatures, flows from green hills of Campbelltown and slips into to the boundless ocean of eternity. The night city looks glows brilliantly in the water’s mirror.  From the old cathedral, organ music can be heard with quiet, gentle and heartfelt tones.  The music gets into the depths of the heart and any religious difference disappears and transforms into unified and unifying power of people, which consists of happiness, love and peace. Of course, you must raise your head and see moon and stars, hear the birds and feel your blessing in life:

«Go over the lines, overhearing the old creaking gate,
Daisies fled on hills,
The smell of dampness in the shed,
An old wheel in a yellow ocher,
the thin rusty tin roof.
An Owl blinks – my eared favorite.

Sunset sits on top of pines,
Purple twilight colors melting in the creek,
In the velvety swamp is a singing choir of frogs,
The night creeps, silently straightening out the black crow’s wings…
Inside of the fine line of leapt years..

Today, the fence of past is already cramped,
but episodes retained in the diary of memory..»

Sometimes, when somebody no longer feels at one with nature, the desired living energy is disturbed. This can be called “the level of love reserves”. The level can be exhausted and fall to a critical value, and this tends to happen when familiar and dear places and people are far away…

A huge oak tree grew in my grandparents’ yard surrounded by an old rickety fence. Our one-eyed ginger dog, Tuzik (who suffered his injury from hands of hooligans), the hulking barn, the small brick and clay house with a round black iron stove inside, were representing undoubted values. The wash basin in the courtyard was comfortably located under a huge pine tree. For a long time, in the morning, Grandpa Stepan used to brew tea under the pine and, as an important ritual; he always touched the rough trunk, greeting the tree.

Usually for Christmas, Grandma Alevtina fetched a leather box with decorations from the attic and dressed up the beloved pine tree. She always shook her head, admiring the beauty of the lush fragrant branches. Decorations peeled amidst the frost and snow, but every year Alevtina thoroughly repeated the Christmas rite.

And this marvelous life could have continued, were it not for the decision of officials to demolish the entire area and resettle people in high-story apartments. Frustrated Grandpa did not want to leave the house and quietly murmured: ‘No, I will lie down on the road and not let them break my life.’
But it happened against his will and my grandparents were forced to move to a new blank area with the cold name "district number 6". There, longing for her native land, granny passed away, shortly followed by the already blind grandpa.

Long after, here in Campbelltown’s leafy reserves, I still look for pine trees and old oaks, so that I can touch their rough trunks and greet them as did my Grandpa Stepan.
Sitting under the tree, I think about a possibility to return to past days and not to lose the valuable secret keys of life: ability to look, hear, feel and remember.
Only with these magic abilities is it possible to feel love and live, creating wonderful plots.

Poetry cannot be called a "business", but through it you can come back home, where memories have been waiting for a long… long time.  And you will come back…