Karel
“Vlastecký”
Self-proclaimed Vlastecian from Vlastec!
It’s time we had our talk you and I
I’ve held off writing this
When perhaps your character emerged the loudest and largest of our line
Born Eighteen Ninety Five
South Bohemia
Karel Matěj Tichý
Your added Saint (- Veliký – of course meaning ‘Great’) – after Charlemagne no less …
Third son born of that name, and you were the one to survive.
Language and culture and time divides us.
Yet here we stand, reunited.
I am your Great Granddaughter
Fellow writer …
I see you smiling
- Though you did not always use your powers for good …
Should we start there?
No …
Life was harsh for your father, a soldier and a labourer, and your mother who bore thirteen children.
You were orphaned by the time you were six.
You had your sisters but
Doubtless losing your parents so young placed you in a certain situation, informed your outlook …
You wanted more …
Disobedient at school.
Too bright to be easily compliant.
I can imagine you’d find the prospect of Bone Turning for the rest of your days mind-numbing and downright intolerable.
You kept smashing through the boxes they tried to put you in.
Eventually became the things you wanted to be, the things they thought you’d never be
But in so doing you strayed from the path.
Took certain personas too far …
The orphan who cared for nothing and no one.
You learned to acquire the things you wanted with a certain ruthlessness, with skill and cunning.
You forced me at times to take fresh measure of my morals and loyalty.
In the end, you learned that to become the things you wanted to be, you had to be the things you wanted to be.
The best parts of you survived your transformation.
You appear brave and rebellious and bold and brazen.
You were a man of ideas and could see them carried into fruition.
You appear refreshingly straightforward.
And fearless!
You said whatever you damn-well pleased and to hell with whoever didn’t like it.
Your traffic violation provides telling illustration …
Tearing about in your Praga Alpha
Taking a short cut through the square along the tram-tracks
Hilarious …
I appreciate your admit nothing, deny everything, direct the blame elsewhere, approach
As you threatened to ‘have a word with Mr Odvárka!’
-Your only response to having been caught red-handed …
Gotta hand it to you Papa Karel
That’s some way you have about you, that’s some style …
We did laugh …
And if we ever get the chance, we pledge to re-enact the crime in your honour!
Along Vinohradské Náměstí
Papa Karel with his Praga Alpha
By the way, we found the manual you wrote on wood!
Amazing, to think you wrote four other manuals on different subjects.
But the first time I heard your real voice was in the article on the housing crisis after the war.
Writing showed you your real voice too, eventually. It was no longer something you could disrespect and ignore.
You heard it and liked its sound in your mouth, the sense of authority, the power it gave you to inspire and motivate.
The kind of talent and knowledge you had is supposed to be shared.
But it was the war that was the making of you.
No doubt you felt a special kind of outrage at the invasion of your homeland, the infringement upon your liberty. I know you would have felt it as the basest kind of insult. Life was dangerous and serious now, the situation demanded action and you responded accordingly, became a prominent figure in the Czech Resistance against the Nazis.
You led missions, blew up trains,
Found yourself in the thick of it during the National Fight for the Liberation of Czechoslovakia, Prague, Nineteen Forty-Five …
You are reputed to have worked for President Edvard Beneš …
Such treasure you have left for us to find …
I am sorry we are coming to it all rather late.
Such achievements should not go unacknowledged.
Your son carried a picture of you in uniform around in a book, the Partisan one that you self-produced, did you know that?
We can’t tell if you spent much time with him in person, or whether he admired you from a distance
But yearn for you, admire you he did, told his daughter about you, said you were a hero.
And so you were …
Your medal count …
Twenty Three …
Twenty Three, and yet we have been unable to take up these different pieces of you and hold them in our hands …
But you are alive to us now and we strive to know you better every day.
In your later years you were described as cheerful, enthusiastic, popular with your men
-Yes we heard about the trainee Firefighters too …
Time, age softened you it seems …
Like your son, you searched for family in the ways you could … I am sorry you were denied it in each other.
Your other Great Granddaughter stopped by your apartment the other day … breathed in life as you would have seen it, in that splendid fine old city.
Olšany Cemetery with history sweeping back to the Seventeen Century, were the spirit and colour of your land converges.
A labyrinth of bones, serene and sorrowful angels,
Pathways covered in sighing boughs led us back to you.
Vlastecký …
By Robyn Hunt (c) 2024
In Honour of a Beloved Grandfather and Great Grandfather
- IF YOU ENJOYED THE POEM, HAVE A LISTEN TO A READING OF IT, JUST CLICK ON THE LITTLE ARROW.
