Ashes to Ashes

So the assignment in my creative writing class was to write an Elegy. I'm not that good at poetry so... here it goes. I hope you like it, and I am WAY open to suggestions!!!

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Behind barbed wire fences
and wrought iron gates
empty eyes stare into the darkness
and yearning hands reach out grasping nothing.

Mothers stand empty of most emotion,
aching for their children’s sweet embrace.
Shivering not only from the cold of winter,
but from the icy hate of the human heart.

Hopeless, helpless, and still dreaming of freedom
They refuse to accept the ultimate fate.
Yet above them looms the ash covered sky,
the smoke of hell belching from forever burning pipes.

Many of them do not know the truth.
And those who do pretend they don’t,
for the truth leaves no hope.
It sucks loves last strands from already broken hearts.

The sight of children being marched within,
the door being slammed closed as in their last moments,
families cry out for help, clinging to the bare gray walls of hell.
Begging for God to save them, but they will not be saved.

They will die in those dank, dark chambers.
As Hell’s Angels wrap snarling, slithering fingers
around skinless necks,
squeezing souls from already dead bodies.

Hell conquers.
Seemingly Hell wins.

And yet...
They still hope.

Silently they will pass, from one world to the next.
And they will find a better life, free of pain and grief.
Finally set free from hell’s horrifying grasp.
In the end the devil and his demons have not won.

Mothers stand at rust barbed fences
Faces tilted toward the smokey sky of Auschwitz.
Mothers who will never see their children again,
but do not yet know it.

Something floats softly, almost angelically all around.
Something... not snow, nor rain.
Horrified hands shake,
catching the ash in upturned palms.

The ashes rain down across the earth,
coating worn and weary tear streaked faces.
The ashes of their children fall,
as if bidding forlorn mothers a final goodbye.

Ashes kissing broken faces goodbye forever.
In the darkness, Mother’s wrap their arms
about themselves in utter despair.
Starring sadly into the darkness.

They feel the death of a people,
the death of their people.
And amongst the forlorn ashes
Mother’s close their eyes and dream...

Of what could have been.
Of what should have been.
They hear laughter,
they hear happiness.

But then it fades,
and they are only distant memories
among the falling ashes of forgotten hopes
and long lost dreams.

Grief stricken Mothers turn,
and in the darkness they become
completely hopeless and
forgotten.