Auschwitz,1944

By Rich Hanson

It's springtime in Auschwitz.
Thistles vie with dandelions
To ring the fence that surrounds the camp.
Sparrows have built their nests
In the wooden supports of the guard towers
And the sound of birdsong wafts gently
Into the robins-egg blue sky.
Frau Brunner's heavy with child.
Gone is the steel-grey overcast of winter,
Banished by the golden wands of the sun
That can conjure green life
Out of a forebodingly sinister landscape.

Like a shiny black lizard basking on a rock
Corporal Brunner gives himself to the warmth
As he eases onto the sun-baked leather seat
Of his sinister vehicle. He strikes
A match and draws greedily in the smoke
As he turns the key that starts the engine.
Inside the box doomed fingers claw at steel
And muffled screams of panic begin to rise,
Reach a crescendo, then subside slowly
As the pounding accompaniment of fists
Beaten to blood against ungiving walls
Is stilled by an onslaught of monoxide.

After ten kilometers the truck turns
To head back to the camp. Corporal Brunner
Watches a wren airlift a twig to her nest,
Then swerves to avoid a rabbit's sudden dash
Across the road. He notices that the trees
Have donned a raiment of green where before
They were emaciated skeletons of bark.
He's cheered by life's cycle of renewal.
It's springtime in Auschwitz.

***

Poem's source : [link]