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                                    #1.  First Encounter

                                                                        by   Warren E. Priest

 

                                    My First Encounter,   on a walk

                                    From Ettersburg ----to Buchenwald

                                                      ( one mile and  200 years long-----)

                                                                       

Walking up the pathway

Through the forest of beech trees,

Leaves April green; the smooth, gray bark

Soft,   clean and oh, so manicured,

How could I know what those trees concealed

At the brow of the hill, amidst the  beech trees---

the buchenwald,

In that land where Goethe and Schiller,

Lessing and Klopstock wandered in the summer months

At Schloss Ettersburg where we pitched our tents, the aura

   of Romantic poetry was intoxicating, heady,

   my presence in those lovely woods dominated my thoughts.

But, suddenly, unexpectedly,  who are these strange men, dressed in

        their striped nightclothes--

Moving to the side of the pathway as I approach?

I hold my GI Issue carbine    ready for any possibility----

I approach them; they stop, a     halting tentative progress----

Emaciated, fleshless faces, bearded, unclean;

They stretch out their bony fingers to me like beggars in

        some city street---

Yet they seem  to want nothing from me. I am bewildered.

There is no hostility  here.

They fall  to their knees; their hands now clasped together

      as if in prayer, Durer-like, yet living, in voiceless

        supplication.

They reach out skeletal arms tentatively as I approach, as

    if I am the Christ passing by, wearing the clothes of

        immortality----

I think, what have I done to, for these four men, a mere soldier

     in the service of his country  --- a 21 year old soldier from

     Massachusetts out for a scouting adventure in the woods

     before my assignment to "a camp", as we were told.

Hesitantly, wordlessly, I pass them by, embarrassed because I

     must be the good soldier; I must not fraternize.

 I did not know  them; how could they know me?

Yet I am   bewildered; they seem to  know me--

    They must  mistake  me for someone else.

But I cannot ignore their glistening, dark eyes, their rapturous

     expressions

     as I pass them by, their hands still   extended, one so feebly

     clutching at my calf but his weak hands lose their grip, more like

     a caress.

I recalled pictures of saints at the moment of beatification having such

     expressions on their faces!

I cannot understand what is happening, for no words have been spoken;

     only those bodies, those eloquent, half-living bodies, little more

     than skeletons; and those faces, so radiant, rapturous almost,    are

     more than I can comprehend. I feel drawn from their presence;

     I must not fraternize.

Dutifully, I move on to the fence just beyond

An electrified fence, a double fence, one inside another, with barbed

     wire barriers at the top of each, an impenetrable barrier to me, so

     I walk along the periphery, with the beech trees following beside

     me along the way like friendly companions.

I arrive at the opening to the fence, a towering gateway,

At the top of the gate is an iron inscription---“Arbeit macht frei”—

I know the meaning---“work brings freedom”, and I enter the compound through the gate;

My journey has just begun!