A ragged doll

Poem by Harvey Gillman.

by Harvey Gillman 17th June 2022

(A recreation from an incident in Sergei Nikitin’s How Quakers saved Russia.)

They came from a far away country. I don’t know how.
They did not speak our language. A few words perhaps.
Kwakera or something. I remember that now.
Foreigners are rare these days. Strange faces but
we were hungry, had little to wear. They brought us food,
they brought us clothes for long winter days.
The words they used were smiles and arms outstretched.
From them we learned to laugh again, to laugh and play.