I wrote this poem for Diana not long before she died in a terrible car crash. I thought I’d share it on the 25th anniversary of her untimely death.
The People’s Princess
You know me, I murmur.
Don’t stop me now
just when I begin to soar again.
Have I not stood in my grief
like a candle in a flame
Inert
Useless
Burning as I burned?
Didn’t you hear me
pounding my fists
against my half-closed eyes
to force them not to see?
I fell from a great height
into that mire
of confusion and despair
clinging to the wings
of illusion.
Didn’t I claw myself out again
with torn and desperate reason
but only to the brim?
Don’t stop me now.
I was cruising,
taking the high way,
gliding above the average
on my way to the supreme.
I can make it this time.
Come with me, I whisper.
Love me.
Trust me,
as the flower
trusts the rain.
‘Cause I’ve got plans,
big plans,
like teaching little ones to fly,
and painting,
with great broad strokes
a message across the sky.
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Thea Halo is the author of the critically acclaimed memoir, Not Even My Name, a former news correspondent for WBAI in NYC, and a former producer for public radio in upstate NY. Not Even My Name was instrumental in garnering the first state-level resolutions in the U.S. that recognized the genocide of the Pontian and other Asia Minor Greeks and Assyrians. She was a co-sponsor and driving force, along with Prof. Adam Jones, of the International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS) resolution that affirmed the Ottoman Genocides of Pontian and other Asia Minor Greeks and Assyrians as comparable to the genocide of the Armenians. She has also published a collection of poetry, and a number of Thea’s historical papers on the Genocides of Greeks and Assyrians have been published in books on the Ottoman Genocides. In 2009, Thea, along with her mother, Sano Halo, who passed away in 2014 at the age of 105, were awarded honorary Greek citizenship by the Greek government. In 2002, Thea was awarded the AHEPA Homer Award and, in 2012, the Association of Greek American Professional Women honored Thea and Sano for their “Profound contribution to Literature and to Hellenic Cultural Heritage and History.” Thea has also won numerous awards for her poetry and literary essays.