Auschwitz Rose
by Michael R. Burch

There is a Rose at Auschwitz, in the briar,
a rose like Sharon’s, lovely as her name.
The world forgot her,
                                      and is not the same.
I still love her and enlist this sacred fire
to keep her memory exalted flame
unmolested by the thistles and the nettles.

On Auschwitz now the reddening sunset settles ...
They sleep alike—diminutive and tall,
the innocent, the “surgeons.”
                                                    S­leeping, all.

Red oxides of her blood, bright crimson petals,
if accidents of coloration, gall
my heart no less.
                              Amid thick weeds and muck
there lies a rose man’s crackling lightning struck:
the only Rose I ever longed to pluck.
Soon I’ll bed there and bid the world “Good Luck.”

Published by The Neovictorian/Cochlea, Black Medina, Voices Israel, Other Voices International, Verse Weekly, Poetry Renewal Magazine, Mindful of Poetry, The Eclectic Muse, Promosaik, Famous Poets & Poems, The Wandering Hermit, FreeXpression (Australia), Inspirational Stories, Poetry Life & Times, Sonnetto Poesia (Canada), Trinacria, Pennsylvania Review, Poems About, Litera (UK), Yahoo Buzz, Got Poetry, de Volksrant Blog (Holland)

Keywords/Tags: Holocaust, Auschwitz, rose, Sharon, name, forgotten, sacred, memory, flame, briar, thorns, reddening, sunset, thistles, nettles, innocent, innocents, surgeons, blood, crimson, petals, weeds, muck, lightning, blitzkrieg, strike, struck, attack, war, violence, ******, death, bed, grave, goodbye, farewell, good luck