Two stories
also surreal, yet real indeed. On a 1984
"pilgrimage to Lutherland" with a bunch
of Lutherans, we stop in Dresden,
after touring Buchenwald, where our
poet-preacher-prophet leader suggests we remember
the "stations of the Cross" as we walk through
this infamous concentration camp .
Then we come to the huge rubbled remains
of "Mary's church" (Mariakirken)
which is the burial place of thousands
of persons who sought refuge from days
of fire bombing this city by Allied planes.1945
We are told there were no military targets
The war was ending soon.
Only a tall spire on one end of a rubble heap
reminds us of what it was.
Two unsought burial places. WHY?
They told a story of a veteran-become peace activist,
Who visited Dresden with his small son. He asked,
"Daddy, what happened to the little children?"
Poet The Floet
update: couple yers ago on a bus tour to Prague, we
stopped at Dresden and found it being rebuilt, stone
by stone after 50 years as a pile of rubble
Anmärkning:
Florence Pendergrast fick, i november 2007, mottaga
Minnesotas tredje pris i poesi-genren.
Red. Bo Sigeback