A Windy Day in Normandy

by

Justice Putnam

__________________________

Your floral-print dress

A breeze across fields

Of Sunflower and Lavender

You told me the story

Of the tragedy of

Your family

Your grandfather on

His mailman bicycle

The delivery of

Resistance correspondence

The fear of discovery

(The inevitable retaliation

Against the village

An Uncle hung

In the Square

A few weeks short

Of the liberation)

I watched your tears

As you prayed near

The soldier multitude of

White crosses and

The occasional

Star of David

Here and there even

An alabaster

Crescent Moon

You wept for them all

As the tournesol

Faced West

Your dress clung in folds

And your red hair

Framed the History

Of your familial grief

(Saint Ceneri, France)

© 2005 Justice Putnam

and Mechanisches Strophe-Verlagswesen