Das Ein Mannlein

Das Ein Männlein The silent echo reflects through the lodge, Ein Männlein Steht im Wlade ganz Still und Stum… Repeating itself in the young boys head. He is not yet a man, but stands proud enough to be, Coming back here to relieve himself of his past. Crying out as he reaches the splintering and tilted door. The memories of the cold, the blistering cold overpower him. He spends time collecting himself as the moon moves across the sky. He had been here with his family- Says the toppled dining room table. He also wasn’t the only child in the lodge- Says the curled up paper dolls in the fireplace. There was music- Ein Männlein Steht im Wlade ganz Still und Stumm… Echoes the toppled ivory-keyed piano in the corner. There was a war, as the Russian Graffiti on the wall complains. The crashed bomber-plane with the seat full of bones assures that fact. He came back to the rotting lodge in the forest Back to the overgrown pile of shambles to find something As he digs he picks objects out of the rubble, a boar’s head, jewelry, dog-tags, And finally the thing he seemed to have been searching for. A baby’s bathtub, with a scrolled handle, stares at him through the dust. What happened to the other child? She still has all of her baby teeth in her sweet little baby head. She’s been sitting in that bathtub ever since that horrible night. When she was boiled to death by hungry war criminals.