Some found billets in abandoned houses <br />Some broke furniture to feed a fire <br />Horses, stabled in the freezing blizzard <br />Perished, were stolen, or slain to fill the pot <br /> <br />Germans sniped and harried from the fringes <br />Shot and shell made travel a screaming hell <br />Famished, the fugitives faced the scourging gales of the North <br />Like flagellants, enduring whips of ice <br />And then, the ghetto, place of last abode <br /> <br />Footpaths were slippery, walking on them a penance <br />Food grew shorter, neighbours' corpses plundered <br />Sick, wounded, famished, weaponless, worn out <br />Even the children wore the yellow star <br />The constellation of innocence <br /> <br />When Mendel looked down on his brother <br />Frozen to death in the street beneath the stars <br />‘I would have sold my boots at the railway station, <br />To lie there in your place, ' he said <br /> <br />The moon in its mighty mansion in the sky <br />Glittered, the heavens seeded by Death's disciples<br /><br />sheena blackhall<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/constellation-of-innocence/
