ACROSS THE OCEANS (ISSUE 4)
ERAH OALIND is an aspiring writer and a passionate Poet. She’s a Filipino-American based in California, USA. A single mother of two boys, she works as a CSA (Customer Service Associate) in America’s Corporate World for 17 years. Her love affair with Poetry started in 2012. She’s a published Poet in many collaborative works amongst other Poets worldwide. Her works are published in African Continent, UK and USA. One day she dreams of having her works published to share her Poetry with purpose to the world.
Ageism
excessive now?
by hülya n. yılmaz
did one of them hit you in the heart again
do they already find you unnecessary
your shaky voice won’t let me be
with that beloved’s passing
last march had brought me my first regret
of having potted my roots here
my second followed today
when you almost apologized
for having lived this long
honoring your four siblings who died before you
adding how your youngest the only sister
still breathes together with her many grandchildren
whose longevity you then wished upon me
a faint hope for the women in our family
in all your ninety years
you grew up very little dad
loving but a self-centered man
high-maintenance
as the modern label goes
why did you have to catch up with it all
in one day
today
on the phone
i am not like them at all that you know
is that why you reassured me over and over
how well you are doing on your own all alone . . .
thirty years younger but i am unwell too many times
i also grew very little dad
loving but a self-centered one
perhaps not as high-maintenance
nonetheless a daughter of your essence
since the time our pillar collapsed
then much more recently
when you two fell apart
you have shifted to a deepness
he won’t come back he cannot
she however may return soon
it hasn’t been that long yet
why though are you in such hurry
with no fair warning in advance
but plenty of subtle goodbyes to me
are you telling yourself what i used to hear you say
“aloneness is reserved only for God”
please don’t you also rush while i’m so far away
i agonize over your loneliness
how it befell upon you this late in life
did you really not hear me well when i asked . . .
they are merely a few blocks from you
yet choose not to be there
and you already stopped forgiving yourself
while you grant them forgiveness in abundance
i just wish so very desperately
you wouldn’t have to hurt this much
that you could cease to grow up at once
and to forgive me for everything i couldn’t be for you
would you possibly throw in a sixty-year-long hug or two
hulya n. yılmaz is an interrupted poet and writer since middle school, hidden in a career as a college professor in Humanities. She earned her Ph.D. from The University of Michigan in Ann Arbor in 1989. Her extensive teaching experience resulted in a respectable number of thankful students whose verbal and written words of appreciation she cherishes most of all in her profession. She authored a research book in German in 1992 on the literary reflections of cross-cultural influences between the West and the Islamic East – a groundbreaking study for the time. More recently – on April 24, 2012 to be precise, a scholarly anthology was published to which she contributed by invitation with a book chapter on a controversial novel by Orhan Pamuk, the 2006 recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature. In her creative writing, yılmaz concentrates on fictional autobiography, short story and poetry. Two of her poems were published in July, 2013 by Indies In Action in the international charity anthology Twist of Fate. Presently, she continues to teach full-time in her fields of specialty; is a self-appointed literary translator and a novice in free-lance writing.