White Silk in Sainte-Mère-Église
Airborne Museum, 2025
She found it caught in the apple tree,
white silk tangled in the limbs
like a breath the war had left behind.
An American parachute.
Drifting ghost of sky and blood.
The soldiers had come in thunder,
fallen like stars before dawn —
some caught fire,
some caught freedom,
some caught trees.
She saw him fall.
Not the one who gave her the silk,
but another —
his boots swinging
above her father’s barn.
Still, she gathered the fabric,
smoothed it out
like the pages of a love story
that had yet to be written.
With needle and thread,
she stitched past into future,
turned war into lace,
and lined her seams with mercy.
No ration coupons for a wedding gown.
No luxury but memory.
Still, she walked
down the aisle of the mended church,
draped in the sky of liberation.
And when she said yes,
the bells rang not just for love,
but for every fallen boy
who would never see
what peace could become.
Turned war into lace…gorgeous
this was silently crushed into a warm worded letter like a poem….beautiful .