The Crows of Majdanek

They perch on the wire
And only disturb their silence
With their caw, caw, caw,
Whose isolated sound
Renders the muted dead
That much louder.

I trudge through the grass,
Dewy, muddy, my shoes stained,
Anxious, nauseous; above all, lonely.

The cawing both reassures me
And deepens my angst.
The one sign of life
Is also an omen,
A scavenger seeming to feast
On the shards of memory.

Rows of accursed creatures
Doomed to stand sentinel
In a haunted landscape
Of zigzag mounds.

The stain of Majdanek
Remains on my shoe;
It wouldn't wash out.
Eternal, like the watch
Of those endless crows
Perched on their wire,
Their caws echoing into the fog,
And into the void.