February 18, 1943

In memory of Hans and Sophie Scholl,

I imagine how easily you could have gotten away,

Standing in the Ludwigstraße in the sun

That improbably springlike February day,

The not-quite-empty suitcase slung

Between you—like two students on holiday,

Let out of class, on your way to catch a train.

Relieved and out of breath,

You stood for a moment blinking in the sun,

Tasting the early spring that caught all Munich unawares

After bleak weeks of cold.

How hopeful the light must have looked, how far from death.

Was it that you suddenly felt young?

—Another nose-thumbing at the omnipotent State!

Or was it the recklessness of the desperate?

Not furtively, but in the pale spun-gold

Of full daylight, like farmers casting grain,

You’d left your leaflets scattered on the floors

In the hallways, on windowsills, at the doors

Of the lecture rooms, and, ignoring their stony stares,

In the marble laps of Ludwig and Leopold.

Was it the change in weather

That made your glances catch, a glance that said

Almost gaily, Why waste any?  so that instead

Of slipping away as planned, you raced together

Back to the empty hall,

And up the stairs, to let the last ones fall?

I imagine, then, how you leaned from the great height

Of the gallery railing into a well of light;

How, giddy with boldness and vertigo,

You popped the latch, and—hurriedly this time—scooped

The leftover handfuls out.

For a few seconds, the pages must have swooped

Like wind-torn blossoms, sideways in the air,

Filling the gallery with a storm of white,

While under the skylight with its square of blue

Your arms were still flung wide;

And while, rounding a corner down below,

For just a moment, the porter, Jakob Schmid,

Must have stopped to stare,

Not indignant yet, but merely shocked,

Blinded for an instant by the glare,

Before he recovered himself and did

His job as he’d been taught;

Before milling students spilled into the hall

From morning lectures, but not quite fast enough;

Before Schmid gave a shout,

And surging forward in the tumult, caught

The dark-haired young man’s shoulder in a rough

Policeman’s grip that would not be shaken off,

Though he didn’t try, and the girl stayed by his side;

Before, in a sudden hush, the crowd withdrew,

And the doors all locked.

Catherine Tufariello

From Free Time, Robert L. Barth, publisher, © 2001; first
published in Poetry.  Reprinted by permission of the author.