Dachau: September 2013

A blue umbrella
with pink pants and a black shirt,
standing under an overcast sky
near rusted strands of barbed wire
and an empty watch tower,
listened as a heavy metal bell in a slow tempo
rang a deeply soulful sound
which could be felt as it
marched slowly across the roll call yard.
Other tourists made the visit and spoke in low voices.
The ghosts made noises, also; in urgent whispers
they held up bony fingers to draw attention
to the squat crematorium where a brick furnace
sat in stony silence under a domed roof where shadows could
be seen hiding like sad children far from home.
It was quiet now, the oven doors open and cold to the touch.
There was dried blood high on the wire outside and a work bench made of
wood inside a large room where bunk beds, stacked with military precision,
squeezed tightly together, equidistant from one another, row on row,
building on building, man after man after man and woman, too.
Outside this camp, the many adjacent homes were sheltered by healthy green-leafed trees
as continual explosions of purple petunias and red geraniums rioted underneath their windows like happy kittens purring and playing during another day in denial paradise.
A time ago, beginning in 1933 and lasting into early 1945, while skeletons and stench were hidden
from their view by flowers and trees, young neighboring kids went to school and
dreamed of becoming doctors and dancers, clergy and brew masters;
the parents dreamed of being left alone.
A memorial to the former prisoners stood with steel arms outstretched, bent, twisted, open mouths forged by imagined screams demanding to be heard, previously welded in dark sparks by an artist whose bright eyes  managed to see through millions of innocent tears.
"Never Again!", they said, expecting an answer from the living.