On the Seventieth Anniversary of Kristallnacht

November 10, 2008

Seventy years   broken
             glass
                       glistens
in November wind
                      biting ashen rain.

All this time we
have lived in a rush
of storm

songs strangled
   cut from earth
               
roots choking
in stirring jaundiced leaves.

We have opened the old
chests, released
musty air

and ghostly breath, pages rustling
against fingers made of glass.

We have dug deep into the old wells.

Where are the hands
            bleeding
                      in silver shards
and beaten
          window frames

          the lips and teeth
                               and hair?
How have we come
            to stand
               here on this strange
            ground
with our children
  their eyes
blackened

with sleep, flesh
           milky
warm against our cheeks

how have we
come, dragging
what we remember

our bags of shattered glass
our faces of shattered
glass, the weight of that ground
dust, glittery daggers
of glass, of windows, our faces

mirrored a thousand times
in glowing rainbow bits

    to live in the end
among these gnarled and bitter oaks?

Steve Klepetar