Violins at Dawn

 
 
Each day at dawn, an old man, a maiden of the village, & a choir boy
would meet outside the church of Santa Maria to play their violins. The
music was the alarm of awakening for the people of Guernica.
 
Wives and mothers would prepare the morning meal, to fill the bellies
of their men & strengthen their resolve to fight the rebels. The women
would scold their children & send them off to classes at the schoolhouse.
 
As it was Monday, the rule of ‘lunes gerniques, golperik ez’* applied.
Chores were in abeyance, so that the populace might attend the Market
for a day of shopping & socializing.
 
The sun would rise every day in the Spanish town to the accompaniment
of violins. But on this April morning in 1937, in these days of the Spanish
Civil War, the violins would weep for the last time…
 
 
church bells cried ‘take cover!’ as warplanes flew in from
the north. citizens took refuge in cellars. 1000-lb bombs,
in booming voices, said ‘not a shelter, but a tomb.’
 
when the incendiaries dropped, Guernica’s pathways became the
streets of Hell. priests, women, children, roasted – Roasted – on
the blazing sacrificial ground. the devils, however, rode the sky.
 
sixteen hundred & forty-nine dead, primarily women & children.
as an experiment in extermination, it was highly successful.
medals of valor were awarded to the pilots.
 
the flames of the burning town reflected upon clouds
in the evening sky, perhaps to warm the feet
of the newly arrived angels…
 
 
*Translation: ‘not a stroke of work gets done on Mondays.’