The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #165631 Message #4221488
Posted By: Joe Offer
23-Apr-25 - 12:36 AM
Thread Name: ADD: Songs of the Ancient Matriarch (Holly Tannen)
Subject: ADD: Smoke (Holly Tannen)
Smoke Obergrashof, Bavaria, December 25, 1938 German Words: Martin Luther English Words: Holly Tannen
For Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, April 23, 2025
SMOKE (Holly Tannen)
We trekked through the snow to hear the Mass on Christmas Eve. Praying, singing, giving thanks, we’re glad that we believe. Vom Himmel hoch, da komm ich her, from Heaven down to Earth , we celebrate His birth.
Candles and an angel on a fresh-cut Christmas tree, Gingerbread lebkuchen Anke made for Kurt and me. All night long we lay awake beneath her mother’s quilt Hearing trains arrive and leave from that new camp they’ve built.
Our old mare has foundered, so I’ll have to put her down. Anke and young Kurt will walk the two miles into town. I clean stalls and sharpen tools, and Kurt is learning how To feed the chickens and the pigs and milk the brown Swiss cow.
Anke used to take her bread to town on market day. Kurt would help her setting up and meet his friends to play. She’d sit in the square and gossip with the womenfolk, Now she sits inside and watches for the yellow smoke.
“Can’t you smell it?“ Anke wonders, as we wash our hands. “Still, I’m glad they found a use for all those barren lands.” She stacks up the kindling while I light the oil lamp, Thinking on the acrid smoke that rises from the camp.