September Morning
They are carried out
over shoulders of running soldiers.
Naked bodies pass
to outstretched arms,
laid into stretchers and cars.
We stand and wait
as darkness bleeds
into our bodies.
Fear consumes days
nights, leaves us tangled
over tripwires of terror.
Two booms break the reverent sky.
The roof explodes like a thundercloud,
becomes a torrent of shingles and ash.
Children and troops run
and fall, shot from behind
while running free.
I search the list of names on the wall,
the wall where days before
our children lined up in anticipation,
Vladik...
Vladik...
Vladik...
I tread over charred floors, fallen
basketball hoops wrapped in explosives
strung like Christmas lights.
He is here
without me.
Kept out by force,
I wait for someone
to save him, to save us.
I am alone, drifting
smoke on a September morning.
over shoulders of running soldiers.
Naked bodies pass
to outstretched arms,
laid into stretchers and cars.
We stand and wait
as darkness bleeds
into our bodies.
Fear consumes days
nights, leaves us tangled
over tripwires of terror.
Two booms break the reverent sky.
The roof explodes like a thundercloud,
becomes a torrent of shingles and ash.
Children and troops run
and fall, shot from behind
while running free.
I search the list of names on the wall,
the wall where days before
our children lined up in anticipation,
Vladik...
Vladik...
Vladik...
I tread over charred floors, fallen
basketball hoops wrapped in explosives
strung like Christmas lights.
He is here
without me.
Kept out by force,
I wait for someone
to save him, to save us.
I am alone, drifting
smoke on a September morning.
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Author's Note
I wrote this in 2004, after hearing about the Beslam massacre in Russia. It's never been published, but still makes me queasy, so I might be on to something. Recently revised, thanks to Robert and Bill for the suggestion.
Other stories by Emily Bertholf
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I remember this ... could never forget the images. This is so true to the recollection of it.
fav
Emily, quite wonderful. Sad state of affairs - what we humans do to one another. fave - Mar
sad, evocative and haunting, Emily. You capture the feelings and pathos of war and its merciless swath of the human condition here.
Just a possible suggestion: I wonder if the entire poem might be even more effective if all in present tense? But that might be just a slight shift, you have it all here!
Fave.
Great details and images here. The last two lines are very powerful.
Thank you all for spending your time reading and reflecting on my poem. I appreciate your comments.
Robert, thank you for your suggestion. One thing I was trying to pay with was time. Rather than telling it either in the past tense like a far away, long ago history lesson, or in the present to intensify the mother's emotion, I hoped to communicate the feelings of suspended and jumbled time felt shortly after surviving a trauma. The disbelief and playing over of the sequence in our mind as shock or depression sets in. Similar to the cocked camera angle they use in horror films to throw off the audience's comfort ad perspective. That was the attempt anyway.
Good poem, Emily, especially last couplet.
Agree with Robert. I understand what you are after here, but try it all in present tense anyway.
"They are carried out
over shoulders of running soldiers
Naked bodies hand
to outstretched arms, stuff
into stretchers and cars
We stand and wait
as darkness bleeds into our bodies"
This reads very strong to me.
This is stunning. A poem after my heart. *
Thank you for your kind words, Beate, I am glad you liked it.
a beauty.*
Thank you, James.
This is sad, powerful & poignant. Beautifully rendered and cinema graphic. *
Heartbreaking.
Excellent in every way.