And now years on,
I sip and taste my warm mug of tea.
It has no sugar,
But is sweet,
Sweet from the milk.
Milk that was once of a mother,
The cow, robbed of her child,
With no choice.
I landed at the other end of the world.

I remember my home,
Our home,
Its welcome smells,
The space in the patio
Where we used to sit,
At the end of the day,
Under the olive trees,
Near the lavender bush,
Watching the sun go down over the sea.
Even if I’m alone, Even if I’ve lost it all,
I find solace in the small things
And cling to them.
I survive in your world,
In the margins of your world.

We will not go back.

I miss my people.
Their smile,
Their laughter,
Their voice.
I hurt,
I hurt so much.
Do the boys and girls here know
They play on an ancient battleground?
That they swing over graves
And slide over the corpses
Of the falls and forgotten?
In this new place,
So much hotter than home,
The woman looks at me and myself jumps.
They see me
And myself responds.

No.
I said no to being stuck.
I said not to barbarity.
I said no to anything beyond my pace.
My choices.
My own story.

For a long time she could not go near water:
A reminder of how quickly you can flounder.
Over time this new earth spoke to her
And made its offer – Clouds, trees, the small yellow flowers
That come up in the spring.
One day she crossed the street to the river
And looked down at the patterns of water.
She thought:
This water will go in all the other water of the world.
She became a tidal person,
Learned to relinquish the land she lost.
She liked the city,
The way the earth was shrouded in concrete.
It helped her to forget.
The only two things you can be certain of in life
Are death and pigeons.

Wanting to be visible and invisible,
Trying to keep the last parts of myself
Contained, protected,
To be seen only by me and be mine.
I keep my space all to myself.
Greedily, I lock myself in
And shut out the world.

It was curiously through not being known
That she managed to survive –
No one knew her,
What she had been or lost.
To them she was just Katerina,
With her brightly coloured scarf,
Cooking casseroles for the local shelter,
Throwing her head back laughing.

The small flat in South London
Was full of the smells of home –
Meals and casseroles of the forgotten city.
This place has slowly accrued
Some sentiments of home,
This bowl fits into my hand
As if it were a vessel I had chosen.

I’m a teacher now.
Our school often welcomes new arrivals,
Little ones with a confused look,
Worried eyes and mouth set
On a sad smile.
We avoid talking about the past,
We do not ask questions.
How many of these boys will grow up
To be another Agamemnon?

It’s a life.
It’s okay.
It’s not Troy.
But it’s okay.
I get to eat pizza and noodles
And Sainsbury’s meal deals.

Yes.
I said yes to hope.
I said yes to renewal.
I said yes to totality.
I said yes to unfamiliarity.
I said yes to saying yes.
You can always be free,
Maybe not physically,
But mentally,
Your soul,
Your thoughts,
Your imaginations –
So do travel,
Explore,
Imagine,
Make a better world,
In your head at least.

I am free.
But I didn’t walk.
I was carried.
With all of my weight and story.
I breathe and feel the ground once more.

And as time passed, I became the Great Tree 
And people, young and old, sat under my shade, 
They chatted, they read, they played, they cried… 

they giggled and listened to people’s secrets. 
Treasures were buried and maps were drawn, 
Roots dug deeper, brunches spread wider 
Travellers took shelter 
And so days became weeks  
And weeks became years. 
And what is a year? The briefest of pulses. 
I changed my form with every season, as was the way I measured years 
I reached for the heavens and felt the rain before the sun. 
Even though I was rooted to the ground, I could see all, feel all, experiences galore! 
I would bask in the sun and shine in the rain 
Stretch and breathe, unfurl and weave my leaves 
As the cool air blew through me 
Come gathered to my shelter, 
Hold my trunk for your strength, 
Be lifted above my roots, 
Make your connections intertwine with mine – 
Your physical, your spiritual, your magical essence. 
As I sit beneath you, I am reminded your roots represent truth, trunk of resilience, branches of ideas, leaves of action, flowers of revolving growth. 

And as time passed, I became the Great Tree 
And people, young and old, sat under my shade, 
They chatted, they read, they played, they cried… 
Ideas trickled down in the sunlight and flowed through my veins. And they percolated upwards from underground streams and made merry in the middle. 
Time passes quickly. I remember most things.  
Unified peoples frollick around.  
I stand here proudly making no sound   
Cheney is no more. Now I am three hundred years old. I am just a young adult. 
I spread my brunches over the ruins of the Maths block. 
An old sculpture lies on the ground, moss furring its surface. 
Human hands no longer seen by any leaves, for they’re long gone. 
No young voices fill the air at lunch times, 
No clattering bikes stream out after school…  
Dappled in day light, shining at dusk, my leaves just shadows of a former past.  
No more do I stand so tall and proud. 
My memories are forgotten in this foggy cloud.  
See me now and wonder who I was, 
A being forgotten, a memory lost. 
I might as well let people chop me down. 
However, I won’t allow people to topple my leafy crown. 
Even though they forgot me. Surely some might still remember me. 
I’ll just wait till they fully remember. Ahh – what to do? … … 
Oh!! What is this I feel on my branch?? A child climbing to reach my crown! 
I live again! And I no longer frown!