Not quite exile
Jen Ross
It will only be for a year or so,
until things settle down,
my father told my mother,
shortly after they were married,
as the country teetered on civil war.
She left, reluctantly, for his land of snow,
cold looks, distant handshakes,
and languages she couldn’t speak.
Then she watched the tanks roll through
her streets, on a television screen.
She cried every day,
aching, longing, hungering,
for her land, family and friends.
Let’s go back, she’d say.
To war and persecution? he’d ask.
When the exiles started arriving
she was excited to see her people,
but soon found herself shunned.
Because she’d left before the coup,
they assumed she was from that side.
When she tried to befriend locals
she could mask her ‘otherness’
until she opened her mouth.
Then smiles would fade,
and they’d make excuses to leave.
Seventeen years passed.
In her despair at the distance,
in her misery amid the melancholy,
she’d plead: Let’s go back.
To raise kids in a dictatorship? he’d ask.
Forced exile is the cruelest of separation,
but immigration can be just as isolating,
when not embarked upon entirely by choice.
until things settle down,
my father told my mother,
shortly after they were married,
as the country teetered on civil war.
She left, reluctantly, for his land of snow,
cold looks, distant handshakes,
and languages she couldn’t speak.
Then she watched the tanks roll through
her streets, on a television screen.
She cried every day,
aching, longing, hungering,
for her land, family and friends.
Let’s go back, she’d say.
To war and persecution? he’d ask.
When the exiles started arriving
she was excited to see her people,
but soon found herself shunned.
Because she’d left before the coup,
they assumed she was from that side.
When she tried to befriend locals
she could mask her ‘otherness’
until she opened her mouth.
Then smiles would fade,
and they’d make excuses to leave.
Seventeen years passed.
In her despair at the distance,
in her misery amid the melancholy,
she’d plead: Let’s go back.
To raise kids in a dictatorship? he’d ask.
Forced exile is the cruelest of separation,
but immigration can be just as isolating,
when not embarked upon entirely by choice.
Jen Ross is a Chilean-Canadian journalist with hundreds of published articles who also spent 10 years with the UN before moving to Aruba to write fiction and poetry.
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