you, father,
after your escape
from Lemberg's deadly POW camps
on your long march through Poland
braved the terror of secretive days
and endless nights
and did not simply stop
you, mother,
were holding your own
against death from above
alone with your mother
I thank you
for finding each other
in a world half-dead from war
for following your youth
and not those old in mind
of whom were many
who then could only see
the end of crazy dreams
that you brought me to life
without my will -
this willful act
I gladly do forgive
as you have bravely shared
in bearing the results
for, what I have become
throughout the years
your love, your care,
your wisdom,
anger, disappointment,
patience, and your grief
have shaped me as I am today,
even though
I did not always understand
from all of this have grown
for me
perhaps for you
belief in self
and trust in life
I thank you
* *
• My parents were born in Austria, in a little industrial district town 100 km southeast of Vienna, steel mills and skiing area. Father, born in 1925, was 17 when ******’s army drafted him & sent him to fight the Soviets on the Eastern Front. He became a POW of the Soviets in 1944 and made it home in December 1946. Mother, born 1926, completed her education as a grade school teacher under the threat of assorted air raids. - I gave them the German version of this poem at Christmas 1992, when both were stiil alive.