Poetry Wednesday: "For Maximilian Kolbe"
Even in concrete, seeds will pry to root;
Even in basements marred with shadows and soot
Their quiet souls will strain their way towards fruit.
One hero will go throw his life away
Before the honor of some vast array
And so inspire their arms to claim the day;
Another will endure a fruitless doom
Concealed beneath the bondage of a gloom
As chill and irreclaimable as a tomb.
There in Teresin, in some awkward plot
His bland, distracted countrymen forgot
A pardoned tongue returns to time and rot.
If you should ever pause there and abide,
Consider the aureate legend it once cried,
How one stretched out his arm to life, and died.
Days in their violence batter as they flow,
Eroding whatever might persist or grow,
But sometimes when we speak, it is not so.
Mother of grief, inure me to all fear
Those hours your lenient face does not appear,
But more the ones when you stand pitying near.