[stylist] oops! Here is the correct LINK

[Jackie Williams]

Lynda,
Though late in responding to your blog post, it is heartfelt.
Let me start at the beginning. I did not know Bob was back home. He must be
in a good remission, and I am so grateful that you are both back in your
home with your dogs and able to pursue your regular routines, and have the
wonderful breakfasts, and seasonal blooms about you.
Your story about revisiting Lidice and taking your students there and your
mention of the day that all of these memories flooded back, caused me to
google the town and the Memorial. It is a story of heartbreak about the
children dying on the way or in the cars or concentration camp without being
able to communicate with anyone. And the heroic story of the woman who
attempted to sculpt and cast in bronze a figure for each of these children.
It is a testament to her, her husband, and others after her death, and after
the theft of the money donated for this project, that it was finally
accomplished and exists even now for all the visitors that throng to it.
As a sculpture in your own right, a teacher, and one who cares so much, I
can understand that you wanted to expose your students to these works of
art, and the acts of brutality behind the motivation for it.
Your introduction to the story and the poem itself is so full of the
contradiction and contrast between the now, your beautiful environment, the
beautiful flowers there now, and the actual happening.
It was a very good post for near Memorial Day when we remember those who
died in a war, and these children who also died in the name of war.
I could hardly believe that Lidice was totally rebuilt three times before
being flattened  to the point of disappearance of men, women, and children
and buildings.
As ever, your posts never fail to educate me about things I know so little
about. Now I want to find the poem about, "In Flanders Field. It is on the
topic, isn't it. I seem to  remember that it is a villanelle, but not the
author.

Jackie 
Time is the school in which we learn.
Time is the fire in which we burn.
Delmore Schwartz	 

-----Original Message-----
From: stylist [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Lynda Lambert
via stylist
Sent: Monday, June 09, 2014 2:00 PM
To: Writer's Division Mailing List
Subject: Re: [stylist] oops! Here is the correct LINK

My apologies for putting in the WRONG link to my new blog post today. That
just illustrates how I need to double check my messages, doesn't it!  Flying
Fingers - that is my defense.  Anyway, here it is, and in the event you
cannot access my blog on the net I will copy and past the article here, too.

http://lyndalambert.com/book-of-remembrance/

The article:

June 10, 1942
Lidice, Czechoslovakia



This June day in western Pennsylvania is everything we could imagine such a
day would be. The birds are singing as they normally do on a June morning.
The sun was up in the sky well Before 7 am:

     My dogs have had their morning walk. Bob and I have had a good
breakfast together; we had toast and eggs and orange juice. Bob has gone
into town to do some errands. I am at home in my office. I have some forms
that need my attention today and I plan to get them all finished up and sent
out today. In the kitchen, country music is playing on the radio. It's a
normal June 10th day in every way.

Eventually, the date of June 10th crossed my mind again. This time though,
it was like a soft whisper from the distant past. Then, I began to remember
something else. I remembered Lidice. I had visited Lidice once a year, on my
summer travels in Europe. This village was so important, I believed, that I
took my students there to stroll about the rolling landscape, walk through
the fields of summer wild flowers that were blooming everywhere.

When I wrote my book, Concerti: Psalms for the Pilgrimage, I included a
short historical note about Lidice. And, after that, I included the poem I
wrote, "Book of Remembrance in Lidice." Below, I have put those two pieces
from my book into this Blog post today, for you to read.

The journals that I kept each summer, as I traveled, became the source of
information I needed to write about Lidice. I have often turned to my
journals for material to write new poems and essays.






This is from my book,
pages 9 - 11.
Historical Note:
The earliest records concerning the village of Lidice can be found in the
13th century. The 
village was dominated by St. Martin's church. 
It was a typical Czech village and had the first school with central heating
in Bohemia in the 1700's.
St Martin's church was destroyed during the Hussite wars and again in the
Thirty Years' war. 
It was rebuilt and decorated by Czech artists.
On June 9, 1942 the village of Lidice had 102 houses and 493 residents. The
oldest woman was 88 years. The youngest infant was 2 weeks. There were 14
farms and a mill in the village.
On June 10, the shooting began:
192 men shot dead
7 women shot dead
52 women martyred in the concentration camp
88 children assassinated
Lidice was leveled to the ground.
___________
Book of Remembrance in Lidice
In the museum
a Book of Remembrance
records the facts -
names, dates, village

A Plexiglas box
holds debris -
sand and dirt
human remains

A basket of flowers on
an embroidered hanky
with lace around the edges
hands clasped in friendship
on a corner of the lace scallop.

Envelopes
with tea colored letters
faded red stamps
written in pencil
postmarked.

A wall for the men
A wall for women
with photos and
names
pf the dead
posted

Eighty-two bronze children stand
In the field just off the path
It's a secluded place
beneath a solitary pine tree
where chicory frolics with the grass.

I imagine it was such a lovely summer meadow
Clover, Sweet Peas, Dandelion,
Crown Vetch, Queen Anne's Lace
a large snail in a smooth spiral shell
beneath the silent pine tree

Zum Gedenhen an die millionen kinder, Die Dem 11. Weltkrieg zum opfer
gefallen sind.

In Memoriam - Jahre 1942
The Children of Lidice

______________

.all past events are more remote from our senses than the stars of the
remotest galaxies, whose own light at least still reaches the 
telescopes. But the moment just past is extinguished forever, save for the
things made during it.
George Kubler
Lynda McKinney Lambert
Artist, Author, Educator

www.lyndalambert.com