Easter Monday (2015)


The silence
It was the silence
As we entered the gates of hell.
Then…
The bird song,
It was the bird song
That chorused our way
To the well
Of tears at the wall
Of many tongues
That speak to the silence still,
Of the voices that cried
For the people who died
The void only time will fill.

The sun
It was the sun
Shining on the wooden cross.
And…
The sky
It was the sky
So blue, and flecked with the floss
Of clouds so white
So pure in light
That the wall of the well of tears
Transfigured the sin
We heap on Him
Whose loss for many
Is the only way
To feel the void time fills.

The woodpecker drummed a beat
On the trunks
Of the trees so parallel still.
A whisper of wind
That rebounds the sound
Of innumerable roll calls
Of the thousands who now
Lie deep in the cradles of mounds
Stone faced, inscribed Toten
With the number interred within
Verboten… now
But why not then?
In that world of men
And women, when humanity’s meaning
Was turned on end.
And a godless creed
That shadowed the world with grief
Which now for many,
Is beyond belief.

The stillness
It was the stillness
That gave silence the space to breathe,
To remember the times, the godless times
That now are so hard to believe.
But silence and stillness envelope the House
A silent place to be
To hear the past that shows the present
The prayers for a future that sees
What could be,
What can be
But will we
Learn, the history from then to now
To forge that future for future’s sake
And answer the question…
How?

David Applin
… late afternoon and evening of Easter Monday 6th April 2015 following a visit to Bergen-Belsen earlier in the day, completed 7th-9th April.

15th April 2015 … 70 years after the liberation of Bergen-Belsen by the British Army.

David Applin (Copyright 2015)