I have my suspicions
as to what led me into
that march of darkness
marked with Swastikas
and somber submission
in a controlled exodus
under herding Nazis
head-swollen from their first day
of seized power.

The forbidding situation
now a scenario marked by vivid margins of
train stations, mountains
and railway tracks
with freedom on one side,
the route to hell on the other where
I and a multitude
of mixed origin captives
were being moved
as reluctant pawns
in a deadly game.

The world back home knew by now,
though we'd been oblivious
to the imminence of the Occupation,
but our ignorance of the mystery
did not blind us to the evident evil
on those faces, the ugly promise of cruelty
in those eyes
as the armed SS men drove their tanks
and rode their thrones
to the front and rear
of our weary column.

Once, when their attention was diverted
I reached for one possession
tucked within my jacket pocket, a cell phone
and as I headed toward the devil’s destiny
I discreetly pushed the digits to
reach my sister, back in Canada,
and then as if conceding
the frozen state of the future
advised her of my forecast, to never
see her, my husband, children, mother,
friends, any of them, again.

Later, at the outer edges of my eyes,
I found tear traces.

But back then, as my feet obeyed the demanded pace,
my eyes sought out willingness from
my prisoner peers to collaborate, by obeying
me.
I signaled to them a strategy
of conspiracy for escape.

Ahead stretched the devasting drop
of mountain road we were to negotiate,
the slope sickening in height,
slick-surfaced from near-snow rain
and miles down below
the figures of the first lines
of we doomed sheep
were minuscule shadows
being swept along
in a Satanic S.

An epiphany seized me
as I studied the row of train tracks
yards beside us on our left.
An extraneous force pulled me
to break from our fearful route of descent
and drag my fellows
by the arms
to follow me.
My sudden surge of energy and strength
(I later attributed to a being I called
The Adrenalin Angel)
incited me to lead our run--
to escape the perimeters of our herders.
But as I braved the icy iron rails
an SS train appeared, a speeding lion
steaming and salivating
as it thundered toward me
then - using its every force to cease
its motion - slowed, as though to let me pass intact.
I saw the Nazi-uniformed engine master smile,
the gesture appearing unnaturally sweet,
and his blue-eyes promising safety -
but soon he laughed, and the mechanical roar
of the engine resumed. Its commandeer shook his head
to hammer in what a fool I was to think....

Too late for him,
for I was already over
rolling onto neutral ground
safe, and in my wake
my freed followers...

Even well after the
hisses and chains and wheels
became memory's ghosts,
around the edge of my eyes
and on the pillowslip
when I awoke,
were tears.

I have my suspicions
as to what led me
that night into history's hell.
I'd been reading the poems
of two different friends -
one on the theme of shadows,
the other on "Z’"s.

I swear
I’ll never again
read poems on either of these
before falling asleep.

01/22/2007