I hear a symphony of history’s calamities – “one death a tragedy,
millions, a statistic.” Grieve the small girl in a bright red coat – 
days of sorrow – a landscape littered with ashes and bone.

A mother mourns her son, “Is he in a grave somewhere? – who’ll
return him to me? Maybe he’s buried in an unknown trench, 
a ditch – filled with ashes and bone.”

Her grieving recedes. She raises her head without despair –
“Songbirds sing to him, mild breezes blow, grass grows over him – 
he sleeps peacefully” – courage born in ashes and bone.   

Tendrils rise from cities of burnt-over rubble, from the mourning 
of mothers. But fresh green springs through wreckage, through sorrow –
the nightingale still sings – amid ashes and bone.  

*Henryk Gorecki‘s Symphony No. 3 "Sorrowful Songs"