Prague Spring

Danelle Lejeune

(USA)

Prague Spring, 1968, 1989, Detroit 1968, Still, Again, Now, Ukraine

“Only those who struggle for their freedom are worthy of it….” 
Plaque in Bratislava commemorating the Velvet Revolution 

How can the patterns go on and on? Doors slam, 
nearby, blood sausage roasts, smoke stirring hunger, 
tearing flesh open on stone. My blood flows there, 
fresh wounds splitting open from fighting back, 

bleeding out. There’s old blood dried in the gaps, 
the stones sunk in scars from tank artillery, 
twisted, drummed, crushing stone and wood and bone—
The sky so blue I think for a moment, this place may be

the birthplace of the color blue. My ghost 
walks with the others—a different kind of war, 
seen between clothespins and wet sheets, a street 
battle that breaks plates, burns the Sunday roast, 

obliterates words—destruction, oppression, 
whole pages cut from books, crushed with black boot, 
starved, silenced, burned—and a blue, so blue that 
I think I may be made of such beauty.

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Danelle Lejeune

is a

Guest Contributor for Panorama.

Danelle Lejeune lives with her husband, novelist Tony Morris, and their four children somewhere near Savannah, Georgia. Shenanigans include beekeeping, porch music, and arguing loudly about obscure and unimportant historical trivia.

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