Not from the ministry of defense
Nor military obituaries in the tagesblatt
Not by memo, mail, or telegraph
Nor dolorous messenger
in fieldmouse grey and gold braid

Nothing but black silence from the east.

No word under the iron skies of July
No help as the August harvest rots in the fields
No news as October chokes the fetid brook
No closure, except December's winter fingers

Eight years later, a man from the east.

Wandering fields at dusk
Wading shallow brooks
Bedding in abandoned barns
Returning to a village at the edge of the Odenwald

He recounts a story.

An army surrounded
A battalion attacked
A comrade destroyed
Vollgranatetreffer

Your husband is dead, eight years later.