IMPROVISATION #58
74 YEARS TO THE DAY

On these grounds
74 years to the day
there is liberation
at Auschwitz
here people
have eaten
bitter herbs
passing over faces
after years of desperation
moments when life
did not matter
that lice
was on a new baby head
just delivered
from a hurting womb
when smoke is seen
scattered from a furnace
of the dust's affliction
as a crow
jumps on the barbed wire
you cannot sign
postcards of silence
with no address
without woolen sheets
of unmade beds
hearing sharp piano
notes of Beethoven
and interwoven Schubert
these exiled days
are gone
yet we know
this morning
there is first light
hearing prayers
recited in a requiem
for the dead.