Treasured Find

   This week, I was made aware of a poem my father wrote 72 years ago.   I had never seen it before.   A woman in Maryland found it years ago in one of two suitcases that contained letters her parents wrote to each other.  It touched her, but she had no idea how to get in touch with the author or his descendants.

  Research on Ancestry.com led her to my cousins and in turn, to me.   We talked for the first time Tuesday night.  Best we can tell, her father and my father were together at Camp Blanding in Florida for Army Training.  Her father had a Passover seder with my cousins' parents and presumably, my dad.

  The poem was written on March 4, 1943.  My father would have been 21, my grandmother would have been marking her 47th birthday that day.  At the time, my father was a German refugee.  All he knew (and prayed) that was his mother and father were alive in Europe, possibly in a work camp or concentration camp.

  Sadly, my grandfather died in Auschwitz.  My grandmother would survive the war, come to America at age 50 and live until the age of 99.

  I find my father's poem poignant, heartfelt and full of the sensitivity he passed along to me.  All but the last two stanzas are typed and the last two are crossed out with handwritten revisions.  I wanted to share them with you.

  What makes this day so different, makes the clouds so gray?
  The sun shines like it always does and yet I can't be gay.
  My heart is heavy and my thoughts are somber too,
  For mother dear, today's your birthday and I am here but where are you?

  I cannot see you, wish you luck as I have always done,
  I cannot show you all my love, like I should as a good son.
  Yes, oceans separate us and on them there is battle
  And every one of our guns, yes, every piece of metal
  That's fired on the Axis Forces help us get together,
  And that this day will come, I'm sure, my hope is strong as leather
  But yet it does not help today, this day you're far away
  And on my mind there is so much that I do want to say.

  I want to ask you how you are, and what you do and dad,
  To ask you how you both make out in this world that's gone mad.
 
  Today is your birthday and I know you will think of me,
  My thoughts will meet you there halfway above the foaming sea
  They'll be together if we can't, they'll celebrate this feast
  And wish you all the luck and happiness, I think that is the least.

  For all the sorrows that you had, may joy come thousand fold,
  Your future life it may be bright and warmth replace the cold.
  Yes, mother, I do think of you, but always when I do,
  This question keeps disturbing me, I am here, but where are you?

  Ernest Morris Ries
  March 4, 1943