Ruin
Nobody claps
time
to a song
about ruin.
Some hum along
from first-hand rubble.
In a Greek ruin, a sleeping bat,
where no one,
certainly not a tourist,
speaks of
Bucha or Aleppo.
There,
in the press of the sun,
A 90-year-old
Austrian,
fist up,
argues empathy
loudly
for his youth
as a Nazi.
He squeaks lines from
Die Fledermaus:
the chorus of brotherly love,
an aria of laughter.
While his wife stands
stock still --
Ach, ich darf nicht hin zu dir.
While his daughter turns Northeast,
toward the camps
and refugees
on Lesbos.
(Ach, ich darf nicht hin zu dir: Oh, I cannot go to you, an aria from Die Fledermaus.)
La Piccioletta Barca (April 2023)
