Käthe Kollwitz, Rest in the Peace of His Hands (Goette), ca. 1936; Bronze, 13 1/2 x 11 1/2 x 3 1/2 in.
National Museum of Women in the Arts, Gift of Wallace and Wilhelmina Holladay
For Käthe Kollwitz
Not yet labeled “degenerate artist,”
you cannot help sculpting
the mother’s hands—your hands—
the ones you have drawn
year after year,
over and over,
solid working hands of
warmth and strength,
protest and protection,
rage and tenderness,
suffering and mourning,
enfolding the beloved, this time,
in a bronzed embrace.
Grief quaked you,
guilt shook your bones
for the rest of your life;
your son, still a child,
killed
in that first war.
Your grandson
will be,
in the second.
Did any hands reach for you, enfold you
in the middle of the night,
to calm your stricken soul?
Did you grip a cloak
wrapping it even tighter around your
heaving heart?
Outside the bronzed square
war rages on:
struggle, death, and
unspeakable horrors yet to come.
All senseless.
But inside this bronzed square,
this island of compassion,
only tenderness and love,
for you, Mother Käthe.
A sheltered place
of peace.
~Laurie Richardson Johnson