Ode to Poland

The tragic loss of Poland's President and his wife along with the top Polish ruling elite was something that touched my soul as I had in some way been close to what is Polish and the Polish people, just as I had been even closer to the Japanese in my life. Call it a long Karmic link or to put it simply I might have been a polish soldier in my past life or a Japanese Printmaker in another as i had also felt like i was once an Egyptian architech, of which I had a very vivid dream at one time in the past.

Poland is to another one of those unfortunate country whose people had suffered through the ages under one form of tyrany or another, albeit religi0us, economic or political . One of the poorest countries relatively speaking in Europe, Poland is none the less a nation of proud and very industrious people having suffered and faced off the Germans and the Russians in two World Wars.

While living in Green Bay, Wisconsin sometime in the late 70s I worked at the Meat Packing Houses as a boner or one who seperates the mat from the bones on a beef meant for making hamburgers, it was while working at this job that i came to make a few good friends with Polish background. I used to visit them at their family homes in rural Northern Wisconsin small towns like Lena and spend the weekend on Polish farms. I was accepted with my family by my Polish friends into their family circle and community which I can never forget especially my friends Bob and Marry Fatla. Most of the whites who ran the Packing houses in Green Bay were of Polish decent althoguht the factories were owned mostly by the Jews with names like Frankathal.

My heart goes out to the Polish people for their loss and pray that they have a speedy recovery and forge ahead with the healing of the nation's grief.