Photo: campholidays.com
all the light we cannot see
the blind french girl
her bedroom fills with pebbles, seaglass, shells,
and yet she misses gardens, books and pinecones.
her pockets lined with sand, her face aglow with wind,
she simply listens, hears and breaths.
the reluctant german soldier boy
he tries to lose himself in work,
stares into space and hears the distant
thrumming of a bird, a skylark
four hundred children crawl along the razors edge.
the blind french girl
her stockings now have runs in them,
her shoes too large but still she walks
a ballerina in satin slippers
her feet articulate as hands,
a little vessel, now, of grace
the reluctant german soldier boy
a shell now screams above the house
everything—transient, aching, tentative
i only want to sit with her, he thinks,
for hour upon hour.
summation
so war continues to this day
with no return, without surcease
preventing lovers’ deepest want
indulging only endless greed
and misplaced ideology
why not accept the beauty of
our differences.
her bedroom fills with shells and whelks
and tears.
I’ve written this for dVerse Open Link Night with reference to the peace prompt from dVerse Poetics on Tuesday. This is an erasure poem with some paraphrasing. The book I used is Pulitzer Prize Winner Anthony Doerr’s “All the Light We Cannot See.” It is the story of a German Orphan boy, recruited into Hitler’s Army and a young French girl, displaced from Paris during the occupation…and how their lives converge. I cannot recommend it highly enough. At my age, I only read books I find really worthwhile, and only once…I want to get in as much reading as I can before I can’t! I read this twice, for its amazing plot and stunningly poetic writing. 5 Stars +++
Please join us for Open Link Night.
Victoria C. Slotto, Author 