Flotsam. Poems in times of wandering “Migration is not a crime”. No crime. Generationwise over lands and lands and through continent after continent. Such as birds, fish, clouds: who could shut away the wind? “Migration / is not a crime” is written on a wall in the migration museum of Ballinstadt in Hamburg, and has been the starting-point for a series of poems on subjects such as: flight, displacement, being home or being far from home, alien, strange, foreign. Touching family tales and heritages. There is an old suit- case down in the cellar, travelled to the States and back again. Is it legitimate to empathize with all that going away going on, all that arriving, and moving on, and once again arriving? Legitimate to think oneself into old and new worlds while still at home? But then: what is this anyway—home? And where should it be: home? Poems in German, and English.

© Patricia Falkenburg 2022