Anna, my muse. Have you
seen what’s going on in the
US of A.? if you were here, you’d
gag and be transported back to
when Papa Joe was trucking
all your colleagues, your lovers
to the gulags ….
Many never returned.
Let me describe it for you.
Naked men in a long line, stretched
top and bottom across racks set
firmly in the ground attended to
by men carrying long thin shining
steel blades who as they traverse
this interminable line pause to
insert their blades into those
hung before them and proceed to
disembowel them pelvis to sternum
cheered on by a scrofulous scrum of
black-robed men stained with long red
blotches by the spurting blood.
What would you do in such
circumstances? Abscond and
conceal yourself, as you found
yourself obliged to do, to re-emerge
when Stalin’s lust for revenge began
to wane, basking in his victory over
Hitler and the SS.
Marching toward them, their cadence measured
by raucous cheering, a tightly packed
mob of men bearing on their shoulders
a catafalque on which rested
an ornate throne filled with a bulky white
man wearing an expression that shifted from
sneer to smile in sync with the beat of the
pounding boots.
Stay or flee? I suspect the latter, Anna,
unable to withstand the bloodlust on the
marchers’ faces. You needed to survive.
Would you advise we do the same? Time
passed for you, might it for us? The cost was
very high, as it certainly will be for us.
Stark choices facing us beyond your time and
capacity to help. It will be up to us, fight or
flight. My path is uncertain but I am sure
I will not sit still.
I have no guidance to offer, other than to
reflect, pay close attention to what transpires
and talk to and hold closely those
I love.
The way forward might then
open before me.
I will share what I learn.