6

(Part 10 (whoo!) of the Europe Collection!! This is actually one of the first poems I wrote, inspired after I went on a D-Day beach tour on the anniversary (June 6). In honor and memory of the veterans of WW2.)

Hard to believe

That 70 years ago

This place was a battleground

Was the sea still as beautiful even in the thick of war?

They said that fog covered the cliffs

And they were taken by surprise

Sword/Gold/Juno/Utah/Omaha

And the country?

Just another front

In a war that its people weren’t even fighting in

Just another battlefield for foreign soldiers to hash it out

Imagine all these men dead

And this is just part of one war

That happened all over the world

(for the second time)

But we’ll never forget them

Even as more faces take the places

they left behind on this earth

On the 6th of the 6th

We’ll remember what happened

Hard to believe

That where men’s blood once seeped into the ground

flowers are now growing

Foreign

(Part 8 of the Europe Collection. A monologue to the streets of Caen, Normandy, from that time I got hopelessly lost and frustrated.)

Once upon a time

A young girl got lost in your streets.

You knew she didn’t belong there.

‘Que faites-vous ici, fille?’

(or so a street could say, if it could talk.)

But a street cannot talk

If it could, maybe it would tell the girl which way to go.

(Or not.)

Anyway

What do you care?

Tons of people may get lost in your streets every day.

And it makes little difference

To a city that’s seen the rise

(and the fall)

of a great duke

Revolutions, uprisings

War and devastation

Been there, done that.

You hold churches, shops, schools and gardens

The single bone of a mighty ruler

And a huge sprawling castle

The passage of time seems like an endless parade

Which you watch, dormant, silent

So what difference

Does one lost, foreign girl make?