The Camp

Train tracks stretch to burnished horizons,
Along an overgrown gravel bed;
Crowned with iron rails, long abandoned in a blanket of rust.
Black ties hint of lives, innumerable --
Which haunt a restricted stop along misery's course,
Where Charon once demanded the price of admission,
Camouflaged in military uniform.

The makeshift camp broods in a forsaken field.
White petals contend for space, in green waves of spring grass.
Chain link windows tantalize unseen ghosts
To grab at the exterior world through holes
Only big enough for a small child's hand.
Razor wire holds the world at bay;
Stalwart against a long forgotten enemy.

Cement foundations mar spring's perfect elegance,
While birds flaunt their freedom over specters
Shorn of Earthly connections --
Left to haunt history's pages;
Reminders of the world's ancient war.
Forlorn prisoners eternally forsaken:
To time, to memory, to men.

A gateway to another time stands sentinel;
A portent to all who would enter.
Spikes vault up to heaven;
An ominous reminder of man's inability
To live together, with those who fail to see life
Through the same eyes as those of the prevailing winds.
Rivers of rain bleed oxidized elements meant to withstand time.

The wind carries echoes of silent whispers.
Admonitions of men dying to live
In horrors which could haunt Dante's visions.
The cruelty of nations manifested on individuals --
Where men demonstrate a Darwinian tendency
To wallow in their bestial brutality
And decry superiority to animals through vociferous denials of kinship.