Bjorn came as a guest speaker during my Holocaust unit this year to present to my students. He wanted to talk about the Holocaust, but he really wanted to put the whole war into perspective and even the 20th century. He had done impressive research and had many numbers to share, but it was the stories he had that interested us (aren't they always?). I tried to represent what he said here in this poem as well as its effect on the class.
I thought about writing two separate poems about Bjorn's experience and listening to his presentation. However, it seemed like what I'm trying to get across needs both at once. I struggled with how to present the man's experience as a secondary source without creating too many fictional details. I feel like no one else will write about this, but I don't want to pervert the story somehow. It helped to imagine him reading it.
This is one of my few poems involving death, so bear with me. I hope it isn't too melodramatic. I'll write a poem about shining shoes or eating grapes soon to make up for it.
For Bjorn T.
The reams of facts and numbers
gathered in your arms like a harvest:
you are ready today
to share what you know
or could re-know with some internet hours.
as you researched
the numbers
you want to put it in perspective,
you tell the class.
A picture of Himmler,
a mass grave of Polish Jews,
6 million, 11 million, 262 million;
each figure on the screen
arrives like a late notice for a bill.
Your hands, --wedding-ringed,
veined, grandfather hands--
Lower the paper to the document camera,
like eggs into a soft somewhere,
which reminds you.
And the oceans of numbers are wearing
attention spans into pebbles,
so you decide to tell the story.
you saw the Nazis at work
how they paraded
in your town.
Things got normal enough
and they were building things,
catching the country up
with wire, brick, and metal.
Plus, they had brought Soviet prisoners,
thin men in gray who cleared roads
and hung cable between poles,
the ones who carved toys
and traded for food.
Erik’s carved peacock,
almost flapping on a string
above his bed,
opened the door to the coop
and eased your hand under fat hens
to steal eggs that would
light the eyes
of the prisoners
and bring out carved pine
worked into fish,
horses, birds their knives
had nurtured from elm and spruce
belted in the bottom of your knee pants,
slowed your giddy steps
to where the prisoners
strung the telephone wire.
A week before, the Germans
waiting by the swastika-ed truck
hardly cared when Erik had traded
his mother’s bread for the peacock.
With their guns leaning against
the truck and their hands
leaving pockets only to light cigarettes,
the soldiers had smiled a bit to see
village boys trading with the Russians.
And so you watched the prisoners
scale the poles, wire looped around shoulders
and not the trucks.
With your eggs that morning,
you hardly noticed
the new men with black uniforms
and their SS lapels.
Trying to keep yourself together
in front of 14 year olds,
the classroom quiet,
like after the shot.
And how the past comes like a bullet
loaded and aimed over decades
hitting targets, scattering like shrapnel
into young ears.
And yet the bell rings,
the students, having forgotten to pack,
applaud for what you’ve said.
They have PE and band ahead,
but they will whisper your story
to neighbors in third-period math.
of the SS man as you ran,
knees battering the shells
and forcing the sticky grief
into the bottoms of your knickers.
How that man had fallen,
then the other,
as the third’s hands took flight
like startled birds chained by his arms.
for scolding from your father.
The day had whittled you down too much
to remember what he shouted.
