| 3. ON A SUNNY EVENING On a purple, sun-shot evening Under wide-flowering chestnut trees Upon the threshold full of dust Yesterday, today, the days are all like these. Trees flower forth in beauty, Lovely too their very wood all gnarled and old That I am half afraid to peer Into their crowns of green and gold. The sun has made a veil of gold So lovely that my body aches. Above, the heavens shriek with blue Convinced I've smiled by some mistake. The world's abloom and seems to smile. I want to fly but where, how high? If in barbed wire, things can bloom Why couldn't I? I will not die! --Michael Flack, 1944 Terezin Home | Poem 1 | Poem 2 | Poem 3 | Poem 4 | Poem 5 | Poem 6 | Poem 7 | Poem 8 | Poem 9 |