Tagged “Trauma and Resilience”

Another Mother

A Bed for the Wretched

A Century of Silence (1913-2013)

The horse returned without its rider

A young woman was weaving With white thread at the loom She was wearing a black dress Her future was sombre Why is your thread white And your clothing black Are you mourning your mother Your old father perhaps I do not mourn my mother Nor my father My youth has turned black And I weep night and day Swiftly your youth passes Quickly time slips away Cast off your black clothes So your sorrow may ...

Innocent Victims of War

Spring of ’48 But there was no celebration. No lambs were roasting in the village Those who had remained Wanted only peace They ran toward their destination To protect Whatever was left That was still their own Many underage children Had stayed in the village Others had been left orphans With no purpose at all They ran like hunted birds Through roads and fields Their clothes all worn and old Torn ...

Civil War

Just before midnight, on a summer night, our windows half-open, yet not a single word was heard. From the mountain opposite the moon was rising. A shadow appeared in the alley beside the marketplace. Footsteps were heard in haste, heading toward the river. Someone had gone to fetch Babo Geraka, the midwife. Labour pains seized the mother, and she said her prayer. She wished for nothing else but ...

The Refugees

Bombs were falling on the village, The bell was tolling, Machine guns were mowing everything down, And a mother was crying. “Pouvólo, pouvólo,” A little child was shouting — But his mother understood He meant machine gun . The night was heavy; In the dark basements, Barefoot and hungry, All the little ones were hiding. On a black night like this, The partisans came into the yard, Searching to ...

The Young Soldiers

Ten boys from Sklithro Were called by their homeland To go and defend The duty of the state. One would be an infantryman, Another a driver, A third would become a cook, And one a captain. All of them kept wondering; At night they could not sleep: “But what do I know about driving? I was born a farmer.” They became close friends, Together every evening — One night they felt sorrow, The next they ...

Biography of an Orphan

At the dawn of the century, In a small and humble village, In the heart of winter’s cold, A baby came into the world. Three Fates had descended there To write the child’s destiny, And before the morning came, Her future had been sealed. They wrote a sorrowful fate, Though the child bore no blame, A burden bound to follow her Forever, without escape. She never knew her father, For he had already ...

Transgenerational Trauma and Resiliance

Transgenerational Trauma and Resiliance On Sunday September 29th, 2019 over 50 people gathered as part of the 70th Anniversary of the end of the Greek Civil War. The lecture was organized by the Macedonian Canadian Health Professionals Association...