Tag: poem

Birds of Auschwitz

Photo: Holocaust Memorial Trust

Yesterday, January 27^th, was Hololocaust Memorial Day (HMD).
This year it took the theme of, ‘Light the Darkness against prejudice and hatred’.

On the morning of Holocaust Memorial Day, 27 January, Dame Joanna Lumley handed out commemorative HMD candles to commuters and passers-by in Central London. She was joined by Joan Salter MBE, a child survivor of the Holocaust, and Martin Stern MBE, a survivor of the Holocaust, and Antoinette Mutabazi, a survivor of the genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda.
Dame Joanna invited people to light the candles and place them safely at 4pm that day for the Light the Darkness national moment.
Dame Joanna commented:

It is a real privilege to be able to mark Holocaust Memorial Day by being here in central London with survivors of genocide. I hope that by handing out these candles and inviting people to light them at 4pm this evening, we can provide people with an opportunity to remember those who were murdered for being who they were, and to reflect on ways that they can challenge hatred and prejudice today.

At 4pm on 27 January, people across the UK took part in the Light the Darkness national moment, lighting candles in their windows to remember those who were murdered for who they were and to stand against prejudice and hatred today. Social media was flooded with photos of candles as people joined the online conversation about Light the Darkness.

Whether a myth or a truth, it is said that because of the Holocaust, birds do not fly over Auschwitz and other death camps. I wrote the poem below inspired by this as a tribute to the thousands of victims of the so-called Final Solution and out of respect for the victims of ‘prejudice and hatred’ from the Jewish people, Gay and Romany people.

Birds of Auschwitz

This is a place where the voice of song is silent.
A place for remembrance,
reflection;
and numbness of feeling.
To feel would be to break apart.
The ground, though watered with myriad tears,
is cracked open and dry.

Some say that the birds don’t sing here.
How can we?
How can we sing joyfully,
melodiously,
in this place of deep terror and pain,
of total hatred and barbaric torture?

Long ago, in those satanic days,
we took council together;
high in the trees where the acrid smoke
spewing from chimneys did not choke our lungs
and the roasting stench of death could not singe our feathers.
Hidden deep in the branches and leaves,
our eyes could no longer see
the piles of discarded humanity tossed aside.
The birds of prey were not our species,
but belonged to man.

We decided then
that here and in places like this,
our voices would be still.
Forever.

Our gift to those who had themselves been silenced.
Our memorial.
Our act of remembrance.

Through a glass, darkly

This photo of Tarn Hows on a misty morning, was taken by my friend, Gill Henwood. She gave it the title ‘Through a glass darkly,’ which is a quotation from verse 12 of what is probably St. Paul’s most well known writing – 1 Corinthians Chapter 13.

For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face. (that is the King James Version. The more recent NRSV has, see in a mirror, dimly, which, to my mind is poetically is weaker.)

As I contemplated the feast day of the ‘Conversion of St. Paul,’ I found the title Gill chose, and the fascinating and rather evocative scene, kept coming back to me. I wrote this poem and tried the let the photo speak to the event I am trying to address.

It is a very amazing photo and it deserves to highlight a very amazing event.

The Conversion of Saint Paul

Brooding mist
blurs edges of perception.
Colours muted.
A whisper of wind kisses the water,
rippling on the shore of the soul.
Visibility impaired,
a cloak of quietness drawn across the mind.
Stilling all movement.
Intentions passionately held,
melt into deep darkness.
Yet this is not the cause of fearfulness
nor of despair.
Out of the shadows,
of seeing “through a glass darkly”
there is a pinprick of growing light
which slowly, perceptively,
burns away the haze
as new vision takes shape.

A Voice,
crisp, gently directive,
unfettered by illusion,
beckons,
touching eyes to see a wonder,
“face to face.”
The waypath is irrevocably changed.

[Mr. G. Conversion of Paul. 25th January 2023]

Understand – Refuse – Resist

Carrière des Fusillés Intro to poem

In the summer, I visited friends in Brittany. Amongst the places they took me to was near the town of Châteaubriant.
Just outside the town is a war memorial at the Carrière des Fusillés.
It is a Memorial with quite a story to tell.

In 1941, the Nazis occupied this part of France when a member of the French Resistance assassinated Feldkommandant Hotz,
the Commandant of the German Forces, in Nantes. As a reprisal, the occupiers arrested 27 hostages and took them to a nearby quarry where they were shot. All were members of the French Resistance but none were involved with the death of the German officer. A further 23 hostages were shot elsewhere.
On the morning of 22nd October, the hostages were driven from Choisel Internment camp to the quarry.
All refused to be blindfolded and as they travelled to their death, they sang La Marseillaise, the French National Anthem. The youngest were 17, 19 and 21 and the two eldest were 58.
After the war the Quarry became a place of memorial and today, there is a sense of quiet brooding there. All of the 27 men are commemorated in a moving display around the quarry, telling their story. Each display board commemorates three of the hostages – they were shot in threes and are remembered in that way. The path then leads to an amazing sculpture by the artist Antoine Rohal, completed in 1950. (See above; photo by Mr G)
For me, visiting the quarry was a profound experience and in the quietness at the end of the day it was possible to reflect on the human cost of war. The price so many paid in so many ways. Individuals, communities, countries and our world.
Every act of violence, every war, every hurt inflicted diminishes our humanity but also has immense consequences for all who share our planet with us. As we are beginning to realize, there is a cost. There is also a debt. Those like the men who died in that quarry in 1941 have a message for us. I’ve tried to express this in the following poem I wrote the other day.

Understand – refuse – resist

Our voices cry out from the ground where we fell,
Comprendre – Refuser – Résister !
The principles of our stand,
written in the blood of our sacrifice.
The message from our yesterday to your today:
Understand – Refuse – Resist!

Your world accepts too much;
making compromises,
and so collaborating –
without heed to the consequences –
for you have forgotten to remember…

Listen!
Our footsteps tread the ground behind you.
as you hurriedly try to flee your realities.

But we are your reality!
Do not try to escape the past
but in the stillness of our final resting place,
hear our urgent whisper –
for it is about your future and that of
your broken, fractious and fumbling world.

Let our message speak to your acceptance.
Remember and repent – turn away from
your hate-encrusted world and back to God.
Work together and take up our cry:

Comprendre – Refuser – Résister !
Understand – Refuse – Resist !

[Mr G]

The Sea, The Sea

Ocean Gyre.

Many years ago I was tutored by Fr. Hugh Maycock, who was probably one of the most interesting and intriguing people I have ever met. One day, he gave me two pieces of Basildon Bond azure paper on which were typed two poems.
One, which I have called Robes won by dying, is about the way autumn leaves change colour and an explanation of why they must. (You can read this as my blog for September 25^th)
The second poem I lost long ago but, oddly, it came to light recently amongst some old papers. It deserves to be read by others so I publish it below.
Both poems have an interesting, if brief, story behind them.

Father Hugh told me that they were written by a young man he knew who had been diagnosed with an incurable illness. In his physical and spiritual pain he had two battles to endure and engage with. One, of course, was the battle with the bodily and mental pain of his illness. The other was with the test of his faith and the making sense of what was happening to him. No doubt, like many in that position, there was a sense of ‘Why Me?’ and ‘Why is God allowing me to suffer?’

Father Hugh told me that the poems where born out of that struggle. In the Sea, The Sea, he is wrestling with his faith whilst enduring pain and, more importantly, his coming death. After struggle, the poem ends at a point where faith has been answered by love. Father Hugh told me that the young man died peacefully.

I think he gave me the poems at a point when my own faith was being tested but I also like to think that, in some way, he thought I might preserve them for others. I have often reproduced the other poem. It is now time for me to do my duty towards this one.

The Sea, The Sea

White foam splashes over bow of soul
lying storm-tossed in the waves of life,
unable to find that safe anchor
which breathes of peace and tranquillity.

Cast adrift, facing furious headwinds
of uncertainty, pain and doubt,
the boat of the soul plunges deep,
is cast high on crest of storm,
blind to that land where love
dwells waiting to hold still.

Is all lost? Will hell’s fury
stake her claim on all that is you?
Frozen by white horses ripping
over surface of cold, deep water.

You think so, yet in that moment
when ending seems to come
and mariner abandons all of hope,
there – walking on the water, radiant,
bright, He comes whom wind and wave obey
and fury spent spreads calm.

In that sweet moment of stillness
Following storm, through your eyes
he looks and says, What faith have you
that makes you fear and doubt?

You, suddenly becalmed and safe from storm
sink instead, into those arms
that hold you fast and look through eyes
that see no storm but glorious sunrise
shimmering over gentle waves,
sparkling with a new found love.

Anon.