The Dry Grass Sings

An old photograph

With fancy edging

Yellowed, yet….

Black and white.

Deutchland.

Bielefeld.

A teen Mutti in pigtails with yellow ribbon and a warm smile

Fresh from the League of German Girls

sits on a grey tombstone

among tumbled graves

outside the Liebefrauen kirche.

No epitaph….

Instead, imagined sounds…

a tolling bell keeps the hour

and the dry grass sings,

the hermit carrion peers from a pine tree

and sings, inwardly, the carol of death…

A teen towering over adults,

A teen conquering the wasteland, where

A musical family stand with dark hats,

Long, clasped fingers

and long, noir umbrellas, like stretched bats, with curved handles…

Serious countenances

With genetic, bushy eyebrows.

Eyes, glazed and milky,

Looking just off centre, some to the ground

At the legs protruding

Under black cloth.

Flash.

No red eye

Only red eyes after the war