"At the exact site of the Lituanica's tragedy, in the forest of Soldin, Germany, the Aero Club of Lithuania rented for ninety nine years a . . . circle-shaped area and erected a monument. (The inscription:) "Here died as heroes the Transatlantic Flyers Darius & Girenas " (July 15, 1933) . . . After World War II, that part of Germany was annexed to Poland and Lithuania was occupied by the Soviets."
 

When was "our" departure:
before the warning signs
                        were clearly witnessed
or very near the terminus
            of possibility -
by which way forward
under the lindens
            was it to left,
was it to right
they went from east to west
and to what purpose
            to what end in "me"?
 
Scrabble to read the graves
four hours the heat increasing.
            Small stone book-shape -
third the way down from top -
grips one pointed gravestone
            (like a clown's hat)
perhaps a sign of "us"
whose trade was bookbinding.
 
When not finding's no matter -
this is community -
"my" people sunk into
"our" people floating here
their stones on the grass sea.
So that it does not matter
            if name sings here or not:
what is a name inside oblivion?
 

Not enough money
to buy the right equipment
            homed into heroism:
arrival no arrival
a crash short of the goal
in a "great neighbor" country,
the whole scene under glass
shrine in its own museum
when it had been subtracted
            out from the swastikas.
Crowd size at funeral
never yet seen in all of history.
 

Behind the pointed grave,
thick trees spread darkness,
huge long-house trench:
a thousand hidden there -
            but not by natural
demise - shot in the neck:
it will take lifetimes
            to read those dead.
 
            Came to the sky
these luftmenschen too early
            against the grain
of their determinations.
            Now I'm at table:
Gorge at my life deep sun!
Take down the charming pilots
            and too "my" ancestors!
 
In the town,
"they" who are always present
holding a festival
of later generations.
Midway between creations
all ate and drank the same
heard the same blood beat
            of excremental music -
we paid them no attention.
How many of "their" fathers
            might have helped
                        to fill that field?
 

"Their" flyers:
nothing as infiltrated
as "our" sallow legions
storm troopers in their time
would soon dispose of.
How could a record flight else
            among so many
bring home the corpses
            embalmed,
later, hidden for years
            from various oppressors
until again, an independence.
 

While it is on record
(those who don't sleep or dream)
                        that in a neighbor town
"they" stood on rooftops
many smiling
            to watch the shooting circus.