It’s been a while since I posted here, and this bears little relation to work, but much more to life itself.
When this day fell 70 years ago, my uncle had, the previous evening, persuaded his father – my grandfather – to remove his entire family from this place, as earlier that day he had witnessed a conversation between an Italian partisan and a Nazi officer which made him uneasy, gave him cause for concern. These few words posted here, in the form of a poem, in no way repay the debt we owe to my late uncle, but it’s important never to forget where we are lucky enough to come from. And never to forget those that were not so fortunate.
His Brother’s Keeper.
Some 50 years
After the event
We learned the truth
And it shook us to the core.
Later, asking more of those
Who bore witness –
Lives not taken that day –
They shrugged and said;
“These things…they happen in war”.
In shimmering heat, over lunch
Of buffalo mozzarella,
Blood ripe tomatoes,
Bread and red wine –
A communion of sorts –
Detail hovered above the table
Like a hawk waiting to swoop
Knowledge, like the lives acknowledged
Devoured in a moment.
On hills attuned to beauty
In a hamlet seeking grace,
Hard men abandoned duty
Defiled God’s sacred place.
The youngest, so young;
The oldest, time left in him yet
Slaughtered both the same
Others too; this, war’s mindset.
560 – innocent all: whole families
Women, children, men. Lives taken
Unsure when the sun would rise
Again, over the darkened Tuscan
Hills of Sant’Anna di Stazzema.
And so, these years later
Those that lived, and we that live
Remember the names
Remember the place
Remember the day
August 12th, 1944
Remember
‘These things that happen in war.”
