Showing posts with label stroke. Show all posts
Showing posts with label stroke. Show all posts

Sunday, December 20, 2020

Poltava to Lviv, January 17, 1942

Field marshal, felled by
stroke while jogging at minus 
forty. Passed on plane.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2020)

Note
Refers to German field marshal Walter von Reichenau, responsible for the massacre at Babi Yar in 1941. Reichenau was an enthusiastic supporter of sports and went on cross-country runs regularly. Having died in 1942, Reichenau was never convicted of war crimes but most certainly would have had he survived WWII. 
This haiku was indirectly inspired by reading about Yevgeny Yevtushenko’s poem Babiyy Yar (1961), which is about the massacre.