Sophie Scholl's Last Visit...

Sophie Scholl’s Last Visit with her Mother: Stadelheim Prison, February 22, 1943

              “Die Sonne scheint noch.” –Sophie Scholl’s final words

Like watching two thousand doves let loose,
              Mama, taking wing from university balconies—
                           the descending petals of 1700 white roses

dispensing our message. Unsinn, Alex and Willi
              called it, but I still wanted to dance in that shower
                            of leaflets, arms overhead, whirling in our words.

You must keep dancing—like the day I came
              home an hour early, found you and Papa
                            waltzing in the kitchen, before the White Rose,

secret meetings in Hans’s dorm, Freiheit in war
              paint on München walls. I wish you had seen us
                            at the university, children again in those few

moments. Never so proud, so liberated; I told them,
             Ich würde es alle genauso wieder machen. Ich bin
                            stolz darauf. You see, Mama? The sun still shines