The Victims
By George Coombs •
The Victims
In light slowly fading,
Among skeletal trees
I pause, looking....
Branches frail, vulnerable
In the clinging cold
Frail fallen leaves drape
The waiting ground
Dark halls of history
Showed them
Bodies everywhere,
Bones protuberant and broken
Souls in death’s other kingdom
Free at last with all the waiting eternal
Some names will always be long shadows
Auschwitz, Treblinka, Dachau...
Yet here, in winter I honour victims
Of past and present predatory cruelty.
Darkness is drawing to itself,
The winter sun smoulders....
George Coombs