The Day the War Ended - Randall Swingler
On the day the war ended
The sun laced through the avenues with lime-tree scent
The silver birches danced on the sidewalk
And the girls came out like tulips in their colours:
Only the soldiers were caught, like sleepwalkers
Wakened unaware, naked there in the street.
Fatuous in flowers, their tanks, tamed elephants,
Wallowed among the crowds in the square.
There is a moment when contradictions cross,
A split of a moment when history twirls on one toe
Like a ballerina, and all men are really equal
And happiness could be impartial for once —
Only the soldier, snatched by the sudden stop
In his world’s turning, whirled like a meteor
Through a phoenix night of stars, is falling, falling
And as his trajectory bows and earth begins
To pull again, his hollow ears are moaning
With a wild tone of sorrow and the loss, the loss . . .
— Gradisca, May, 1945