Something in the water
A Jewish transport arrives at Stutthof concentration camp. Down the road is the popular resort town of Krynica Morska. Families untouched by the Nazi nightmare splash in the waters of the Baltic Sea, oblivious.
 
holiday
at the beach                 she says goodbye
gentle waves               to her father at Auschwitz
 
Wetlands and beautiful pine forests, spotted with silver-birch and oak, surround the electric barbed-wire fences of Stutthof. Inside the fences typhus runs rampant.
 
two leaves
on a branch                  her friend says
white ash                     ‘I will be your sister now’
 
Just days before Liberation, the remaining prisoners at Stutthof are marched to the Baltic. Hundreds are forced into the water and shot. One of the survivors marries and immigrates to the United States. She vacations with her family every year at the beach.
 
untramped
in the snow                  she walks by the sea
purple crocus               washing the sand from her feet
                                   
Sonic Boom April 2018


​This haibun is one of my poems in my collection of holocaust poetry. I hope to publish them one day, but I feel that there are more to come. I write about the holocaust because it is a story, or should I say millions of stories, waiting to be told and remembered. It was a time of great suffering and fear. A time like no other in modern history. Ultimately a time of triumph, of good over evil. We would do well to remember. As a believer, I see it as a historical marker, a moment in time, from which the modern state of Israel was reborn. A prophecy fulfilled which will usher in a new Kingdom. One in which there are no more tears and no more dying.

​"And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, Look! God's dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away." 
​Revelation 21: 3-4 (NIV)

 
Coming back different
 
They found him behind the drapes in the living room hiding from the commies--
 
We follow the nurse down the long corridor at the VA Hospital where Uncle Herb lives. My shoes squeak on the white-tile floor.  As we enter the visitor’s area the nurse locks the doors behind us. I wonder if she will remember to let us out.
                                   
snow--
so many colors
of camouflage
 
Uncle Herb is staying with us for the weekend. I start to laugh when he sings White Christmas. He sounds just like Bing Crosby. I think he forgot to take his medicine though, because he’s talking non-stop again about his perpetual-motion machine. Dad tells him it won’t work but Uncle Herb won’t listen. He just keeps talking and they keep going round and round.
 
subway train
he checks his pocket
for another nickel
 
The music is loud at Lois’s wedding reception. Various aunts, uncles, nieces, and nephews are celebrating, including Uncle Herb. The DJ is playing Devo and we are all out on the floor dancing. Lois succeeds in convincing Uncle Herb to join us. On a good day he does a pretty mean Freddie.
 
birdsong…
rapid fire of machine guns
in a distant field
 
It would have been enough that you survived Korea, the psychiatrists, all the Thorazine they pumped into you, the weekend passes, the group homes, and us. But those awards—the ones they found in your room—for the thousands of hours you spent taking care of the patients at the VA. How did you do it? We thought you were just drinking coffee, at McDonald’s, with your friends. Seems you had a little bit more in mind. Oohrah!
 
the old lot
between the cracks
daffodil blooms
 
 
 
For my Uncle Herb...you "whipped it good!"