A ragged doll

Poem by Harvey Gillman.

(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.

She came one morning. She knocked. We were scared.
She was ancient and very tall. I was only four years old.
Small and thin. Food was a memory. With her she brought
a bag as large as a mountain. We watched. We waited.
She gave us bread, large, brown, hard, smelling of the fields
where once we played. From underneath the bread
she pulled out an old rag doll. She was like a magician.
She stretched out her hand, gave me the doll, gently.
It greeted me with its big blue eyes.
A doll of rags. A doll of rags to be my friend.

I kept the doll for many years until like me it fell apart
among the rage and strife of a later war.

These strange people came from far far away.
They gave us food, clothes. I did not know their god.
I only knew their love. My doll with big blue eyes.

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