white noise

For those young people of the White Rose Resistance, who lived and died courageously.

You sent your messages barbed —
prismatic words burrowing deep
into the hardened, winter soul.
These forbidden ideals scattered,
delivered in secrecy,
each of you toiled long,
cold hours for justice.

In January, you knew that you, too,
were just as guilty; perhaps not of
the treason that justified murdering you,
but of blindness, of resisting too late.
Thinly sliced, that romantic ideal
of perfection ill-suited you and, finally,
you glanced beyond the promise
of Total Victory, saw it for the cruel
annihilation it was:
a blue-eyed, all-white monster
with an insatiable appetite for humanity.

Your words etched the truth: a long,
fat scar across the howling monster’s jowl.
And he knew, knew you were beautiful
the moment your eyes opened and
God’s fingertip brushed your cheek.
Even while the blood clung to the tip
of the blade desperate to silence you,
you proved roses have thorns.
You resisted, owners of your lives and words,
commanders of respect. You found it even
in the eyes of God. A God who smiled wordlessly
when the last of your words
rained from Allied planes.

We would all like to have died
so young or noble
if we, too, had such a purpose.
Yet, what mark would we leave upon the world
but a scar?

No, our dreams are vivid because of you.

21 February 2006

For any one interested, April is National Poetry Month. Might I interest you in some Louise Glück, or perhaps some Rita Dove to entice and enrich your poetic minds? The Rita Dove page is especially nice; you can either read the poems yourself, or listen to them performed by Rita.