Winter moon,
Scythe cutting the evening sky,
White light
Shone through a torn curtain;
Far space overwhelms the Earth,
A fleck of dust in the vastness.
Ice on the road home
Glittering in the moonlight
A stark warning.
I tread warily
Head bowed
Hands thrust in sleeves.
It was much like this in February 45,
The Russians close to Berlin,
London still in darkness,
North Eastern France in flames.
Much ruined to no real purpose.
And now this snow bound February night,
In an insular town
In a self congratulatory country,
A full lifetime after the guns were silenced,
I sit and mourn for all that has been lost
From this troubled world,
This speck of rock
That we dare to call our home.
Whole cities razed.
Whole cultures lost.
The Polish cantor burned in a barn.
The Lithuanian professor
Frozen in irons.
Our family friend
Shot dead in Ravensbruck,
Shot dead for no real reason.
Nothing remained,
Nothing for us to touch,
Only her photograph
Placed on an empty coffin,
An insignificant box
Shadowed by memories.
Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
28th.- 30th. January 2013. revised February 17th. 20i3.
Written in response to the 2013 Holocaust Memorial Day.
I have made a pilgrimage to Ravensbruck Concentration Camp.
3rd. poem in sequence of Poems in Times of War.
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