It was done - it was done forever
Time allowed no return
A happening can’t unhappen
A fire does not unburn.
- and Memory has no doorman -
The civilised and the lout
Can equally gain entry
There’s no fence says KEEP OUT !
Did you read of the Anschluss?* My mother
Had a letter from Vienna one day
‘Our dear son is no longer with us’
Was all it dared to say.
When a day’s too dark for dawning -
- A dirge too sad to sing
Memory nudges a hidden hand
To pluck at a hidden string.
Not all your floods of all your tears
Can wash an eternal stain
You may dry your eyes for Abel
You shall always remember Cain.
ANSCHLUSS: The Nazi annexation of Austria in 1938
followed by notorious celebrations and tragedies in Vienna.
It was a foretaste of the Holocaust to come.
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