June 28, 1914

We have no internet, no cell service today.
It is quiet in the country,
Cut off from the wider world.

One hundred years ago today, an assassin
Shot an Archduke, and the ill-formed alliances
Precipitated the Great War.

That led to World War II,
Millions of deaths, nation building,
Nation destroying, up to today.

But on June 28, 1914, there was a mother
Making food in a farmhouse,
Cut off from the wider world.

My great-grandma had seven years yet
Before she birthed my grandma,
And almost thirty before the Nazis came

To the farm, looking for the Dutch resistance,
While her sons hid in a drainage ditch and escaped.
One hundred years ago, she was like me,

Going about her business, unaware of the bullet that would
Unleash intense evil that would one day engulf her life.
The violence elsewhere had no effect on her peaceful home.

Yet.