U Boat Rising

Sinking happily in the
Murky depths
No design
Easily defined
No sign of existence
Save for the
Whishing of the
Hushed motor
That no one
Could ever detect

Rising slowly
Assuredly
Faint pinging
As my ship
Kisses the
Water's surface
Interface
Rising up

U boat rising
Making my presence
Known in this
Vast ocean
Of wonder
No need
The quiet plunder
No need to
Take it all
Throw it all
Asunder
Just taking enough
In this rocky
Ocean rough

**Poem inspired by the novel I recently read "The Nazi Officer's Wife".  This holocaust survivor perfectly explained what it is like to survive unimaginable abuse / situations.  She eloquently describes the survivor's mindset.  I will never know the horrors of the holocaust but I do know what it's like to feel invisible.  I also know what it's like to choose invisibility.  In my life, I have personally met 4 holocaust survivors.  1 from the Buchenwald concentration camp.  The remaining 3 from Auschwitz.  All during the time I had recently left my ex.  Their presence still resonates with me.  3 women.  I male.  A rabbi.  Mothers.  They talked.  I listened.  The rabbi? You'd never know he was a holocaust survivor.  Always smiling; making others around him smile.  I held his hand when I found out what he'd been through.  He shrugged and smiled.  At the time, I thought, "If he can do it, so can I."  One woman could not sleep with the lights off.  I put my gait on her and she hugged me saying over and over "Pretty baby.  My pretty baby.  I love you.  No."  I knew what she meant.  I took that gait belt off faster than a lightning strike.  She stood up with me and hugged me.  I cried.  She cried.  I thought "If she can stand, so can I."  One was so deadpan in her resistance to believe in God.  She talked.  I listened.  Her entire family.  Murdered.  Except for her.  She was but a child in Auschwitz.  A death camp that did not appreciate the presence of children.  She met her husband in Auschwitz.  They went on to live a happy life with children spoiled rotten and happy.  I thought "My God.  If she can love again, then so can I." Buchenwald was not even on my radar but a Polish daughter explained her mother's resistance to touch.  Quiet voices always win with no grand promises.  She walked.  She apologized over and over when it was all said and done.  I thought, "She walked. So I will too."  I couldn't even answer her apology.  Typhoid.  Starvation.  She survived.  No apology necessary.

So you see, we do not live in straight-plane universe.  Its spherical shape wraps around and brings us together in unique ways.  We live together.  We learn together.