Lest We Forget

What a day to be twenty-one,
A clear blue sky,
A brilliant sun,
A contradiction!

There is no birdsong,
The silence is eerie!
A feeling of unease,
Fills my being!
As I look at
The foundations laid out,
Like graves.
I have visions of grief!
Panic and fear, of
People I’ve never met but,
Will not forget!

The rows of reminders,
And yes the gas chambers,
It’s painful to the eye!
A pair of huts are full
Of the inmates memorial!
A tangled, metalled mass,
A sculpture of a brutal past!

It is an August day,
I will never forget!
No where, no way, no how,
I’ll never forget the day,
And my visit to Dachau!

The torment they went through,
I can’t begin to know!
But I can honestly say,
My heart is filled with sorrow!

We all know where we were,
The day that Elvis died,
Likewise J. F. K!
But the day that’s most imprinted,
On my soul,
Is that day in Dachau,
When I was twenty-one years old.

George. L. Ellison
ã 08/05/2009