Thoughts on Terezin

 by Brionna McDonald

Swallows build and birth in their nests, 

over the graves of your mothers.  

In the silence of the past paved over,  

a bird sings. And over unimaginable anguish,  

grass will grow.  

The Earth will not be salted. Not by you. 

The Earth is not borne by you, the Earth bore you. All that came before 

will support all that is to come  

until ivy covers every blood-covered stone.  

Ashes or fertile manure mixed together will cultivate 

some scraggle of life— 

all the same.