Terezin Poem by Hugh Mitchell

Dripping in rain at the year's end
an elegant old town - too large for those who've settled here
they move in dreams over the scrubby grass
pushing through memories along the square.

No soldiers now, no orchestras, no art,
no buildings full of transshipped folk packed close,
no brittle music of a child's brief laugh,
no rail link to the east, beyond the reach of hope.

Clutching our cheap Czech booze, we meet an old, drunk man
anaesthetized against the way things used to be -
a drink may hush those silent voices for a while -
that eloquence of lost humanity.