October 1, 1939

We are travelling, through a flat, beautiful landscape

Writes my grandmother

Ancient forests; trees like bewitched figures, thickets of shrubs

In 1939

Farmlands, small wooden houses
Blue lakes, green village ponds

Her father arrested, then released

Now and then, cattle
Earth covered with high grasses

Fake passports

Enchanting places, where one
Would like to stop

A steamship from Hamburg to Havana

Now, a small wooden church
Now, a village train depot

Six months on an island

I wish

Then New Orleans

I wish I could

Then a train to Los Angeles

I wish I could describe

Where she keeps a diary

I wish

Which I read on a different train

I wish I could describe each place to you

Almost eighty years to the day...