Borderlines & We Carry our Dead, poems by Julene T Weaver

German, Heil Hitler
Someone in my family long ago loved this man.
Someone in my family, in my lifetime, hated this man,
told me, "Never say you are German."
Denied my German ancestry through gritted teeth
and red-faced anger, swore because my father
was not German, I was not.
This uncle, my mother's brother,
their parents directly from Germany.
He disowned them, tried to own me.

My Swiss grandmother on my father's side
lived by the German border, taught me
eins, zwei, drei, vier, I recited
through childhood proud
we kept white chickens fenced
in grandma's back yard.

we carry our dead

never meant to exit
without saying goodbye,
trails of tears
war at the end
of a gun
ends life,
never say goodbye
completion impossible
in this life of war we live,
wars others start
our own wars
gun right wars
wars we want to stop
but they will not
despite peaceniks
circles around Green Lake
Raging Grannies
wars continue until the end,
children hungry in the streets
the soldier
builds his armor
the slave
builds his armor
the heart in war
builds its wall,
we cannot hide
from our demise
war is homeless,
bullets litter
love's lost trail,
love destroyed
before the bloom
slavery's wall
implanted,
freedom's root
followed endless,
true spirit
walks without a trail,
we will forge a trail
we will will walls down
Do No War,
our love hardens
we die sad
to carry this on
so very sad