Gerda Walz-michaels

The Ocean Carries Me: Poems Gerda Walz-michaels

These poems were written in the time frame of about twelve years between 1999 and 2011, spun in loose chronological order from 1942, the year of my birth, to 2011, the year of my youngest brother?s death. The collection starts with ?A Prayer? which lies at the center of all my searching for clarity in my life. It continues with ?Anonyma,? a young woman, who experienced the end of World War II living alone in Berlin. Both poems give the direction of my work as being very personal and going beyond personal, reaching out to understand that period in history. I spent the first forty years of my life in Germany. At the end of this time when visiting London a shift of continents took place. After that I lived in America, regularly traveling between the two continents. I started to encounter feelings from the past and the present times in all different forms and intensity and wrote them down as poems or in essays, thus opening up a change of perception. Different bodies of water: the Atlantic, the North and Baltic Seas, lakes and rivers played a crucial role. Coming to the last of my poems before the Epilogue I could honestly express a ?Thank you? for my life?s many blessings. It became more transparent and clearer for me. I had lived with the burden of Germany?s Nazi past all my life. This is at least how I felt. Being silenced from childhood on, I continued to be silent many more years until I confronted myself finally with this silence which showed up in my body and soul through all sorts and degrees of pain. Slowly a transformation began to take place, accompanied by improved health, strength, acceptance and gratitude. Writing the poems led me to more forgiveness, both given and received. It changed my life.