Poetry

By Deanna Northrup

 

In Teresenstadt

 

A ghost village bore witness:

 

    An endangered species marched toward extinction

    to Verdi's Requium.

    The swaggering boots paused to listen

    to the Mass for the Dead

    not knowing it tolled for them

    and the dead walked somnolent

    into eternity as

    the music played.

 

    What use have the dead for lightbulbs?

    Or for Hass' onerous duty?

 

    Lice devoured the children of

    the Bartered Bride

    as Pavel's band played on.

 

Oh Lord let me never be confounded.

 

 

   Then and Now

 

We were disillusioned

without reason

unsatisfied

though lacking nothing

discontent

with the contentment around us

angry.

Looking back, we wonder why

and long for what we had

before the revolution.       

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Deanna Northrup earned her MFA from Spalding University. She writes short stories and critical essays as well as poetry and she is in the process of finishing her first novel. She resides in Iowa but spends her winters in Florida and has lived in California, Minnesota, and Texas.