In Vilna lives a young Polish girl, so wealthy and carefree
Suddenly, away goes she and her family
Taken by force, pushed into a truck
Belongings stuffed into a trunk
A train awaits as they file in
The door closes and the light is dim
The young girl asks, "Where are we going?"
Her father replies, "Only the Russian soldiers are knowing."
Weeks fly by on the railroad
Ever so slowly the train goes
The prisoners alike arrive at a town
Once again pushed into trucks and carted around
The girl and her family arrive at a mining camp
The grandmother says repulsively, "We look like tramps."
"The land is so flat!" The girl remarks
"We're in Siberia...." The father says with a heavy heart
Silk clothes soiled and heads hung low
Into makeshift mud houses, the capitalists go
The landscape, nothing but brown and dried grass
The young girl thinks, "how long will this heat last?"
To the gardens, she goes
To **** the hundreds of shrunken potatoes
Her family is to work in the mine
On little bread and cheese, they dine
Finally relocated to a nearby village
Everyone so hungry, none dare to pillage
The girl goes to school and makes new friends
She wishes hopefully that learning won't end
Her family with their own mud house
Having not to worry about a single mouse
A letter arrives one day
To war, the father must be sent away
He takes the train to the front lines
Everyone says their goodbyes
Weeks later, the newspaper arrives
Heavy casualties reported, from those same front lines
They receive a letter from the father
"I'm alive." It reads, "About crying, don't bother."
Winter creeps in and nothing is left to keep warm
The girl steals coal and wood shavings thinking, "it couldn't do any harm"
Quickly the money goes by
The young girl takes up knitting on the fly
Her knitted sweaters earn them milk and potatoes
She spends less time with her friends, though
The little mud house too cold to bare
They find new people to live with, no warm clothes to wear
Years pass and the girl turns fifteen, not young anymore
Seven years they have spent in Siberia, living like the poor
Word arrives that the war is completed
From Siberia, the Germans had packed up and retreated
A letter comes, saying that the little family can go home
They take the train and upon arrival begin to roam
The streets are barren with nothing left
They find their house, not spared of theft
The father appears much older
The weather in Siberia was much colder
Than what Vilna, Poland was like
The girl takes her father's hand and family alike
The years of exile are done
The war is over, the Allies have won
I made this poem October 11, 2016. It was for an LA book project. This is based off a book I read, The Endless Steppe. I had to write a total of 3 poems for the project. For the first one, it had to be a summary of the book. FYI, the book takes place during WW2.
