The day after my mother’s death, my niece
and I pour through photo albums, find
a box of loose, curled, snapshots — images
of the massacre at Gardelegen —
a barn door opened by American soldiers,
bodies one on top of another at the entrance.
Four feet to the left of the pile is the face
of a young man who managed to dig a hole
from the inside, get his head into
the open air. His shoulder blades never
made it; the rest of his body suffered the intended
fate — all burned alive in the barricaded
barn under the direction of the SS before
they fled — the fire meant to destroy evidence
(evidence kept in a box by an old woman
with a plethora of war photos documenting
medical personnel doing their duty, doing
their damn best to save every life possible).
I take out my cellphone, click a picture
of the picture, send it to several friends,
proud of my mother’s involvement, wanting to send
a message of “Never again,” because Neo-
Fascists now march openly in America.
One of my mother’s field hospital surgeons
said he would ask himself for the rest of his life
how so many could follow so few deviants.
There were only thirteen survivors
out of 1,016 prisoners at Gardelegen,
thirteen souls gifted an independence day.
Asked in an interview by National Public Radio,
sixty two years after the war,
why she joined the Army Nurse Corps,
my mother reflected on my father in the Pacific,
her two oldest sons surviving Vietnam,
her youngest son just back from Afghanistan:
“We knew the risks, but somebody had to do it.”
Infant mortality is at an all-time-low
but every woman takes a risk in order
to bring new life into the world.
My mother helped deliver new life
to rescued souls in Gardelegen, Germany,
and many more at Bergen Belsen, then
birthed seven children of her own;
each delivery, each baby’s cry
a declaration of independence.
Steve Nolan is a retired military officer and mental health professional. He has published in numerous journals and his poetry was featured on National Public Radio, Morning Edition, upon his return from Afghanistan. He is the author of “Go Deep,” “Base Camp,” and “American Carnage, An Officer’s Duty to Warn.” He resides in Newtown.
Poet’s Corner is curated by Bucks County Poet Laureate Tom Mallouk and supported by a grant to the Bucks County Herald Foundation made possible by Marv and Dee Ann Woodall.
To submit a poem for consideration, email it to Heraldpoetscorner@gmail.com. If the poem has been previously published, please say where it first appeared.
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