Refuge

Riches followed roots

and then he mentioned 'refuge' -

grandfather is long gone

but his stories refuse

to depart from the mansions

of my memory.

A cane chair and his depleting form -

he talked of his homeland, his princedom -

so unreal, thought I.

He couldn't have been a boy,

charming the cows into a deluge.

He was only an old antique of a man,

reliving the days of his refuge.

"And so we escaped, my dear -

we quit what was not to be:

childhood and home and father,

all turned history."

"I lost my all to the Partition;

I quit what was not to be.

But dear, you must know

that my loss set me free."

"They say of us, that we fled

for life and a future,

for adventure, for destiny,

for struggle, for identity."

"True. And I must tell you:

History is just a story -

what matters is the moral,

not the fact."