Storks over Auschwitz
by Benjamin Sevart, 2025 Law Fellow
There guides answer delicate questions from Turkish doctors and Swiss lawyers
asking righteous how the wicked could stomach the constant killing.
Scant few connect his liking for paychecks and six weeks’ vacation.
There students suffer lectures about children’s sketches
protected by plexiglass in the Czech barracks.
Some snicker and scurry around like kids do.
There chimneys mark out ranks as terracotta soldiers,
silent, stoic, and decades into ceaseless sleep.
Others creep upon one’s thoughts unseen.
There a gatehouse lurks unspeakably obscene
in selfies clicked by thick-skulled visitors.
On second glance it seems weak, sickly.
There ballast crunches where God, ashamed, hid
his face from women men selected.
Just past sight the tracks stop.
Spend a scorching summer’s day there
to look, see; to listen, hear; to weep.
I think what stirs your soul will be the sky.
Benjamin Sevart was a 2025 FASPE Law Fellow. He is currently clerking for a federal judge in Indiana.