May 9-15, 2005: Seventh Annual Yom Hashoah Issue

The Iconoclasm of All Our Lives

What right have I to share the blight
Of a myriad lost lives?
Does the stain of Cain darken my temples too?
When inheritance shakes free from dark vestiges,
Can it bear proudly, the beards of our forefathers;
Those forebears draped in shawls of Abraham and Jacob?
Does our heritage sell cheap as Esau’s birthright?
Is our past only a coat of many colours, frayed,
Soiled, bloodied, torn and abandoned by our brothers?
Adam, Able Joseph, Job, Isaac, Saul, David, Absalom;
And with countless others, we bear the consequences
And wrath of G-d until that day that screamed to heaven!
When cartage trucks on rails chugged to those neat rows
Death’s barracks barbed wire and rancid smells of ovens Will nature’s balance ever be restored,
On smoldering mass of graves that reeked to the clouds?
Will spring spray again her perfect bouquet of flowers,
From ruby wounds, dumb mouths, the shots, the silence
And from the eyes that stare, blank as unmarked graves?
May they stampede the stars to exhort G-d’s answer Only the twitching forest folks’ stare acknowledges them Only a lone breeze rustling through tall grasses, stir
Buchenwald and Birkenau from their pastorality Most is lost to history Perhaps the biting Polish winter;
The searing cold Ukraine will pay homage, a while longer
To those multitudes who died a dozen times;- Whatever!
The night in Northern Europe and to Eastwards
Lingers forever over those that do remain Our history must move on and embrace a new scenario The world we know was born from this barren vista yet
From it, enlightened people spread across the earth There never was an Eden long enough for anyone
But the real tragedy lies in everyone;
That each of us was never granted time enough
As the mortal merry-go-round spins ever more
Never to pause long enough, to let us comprehend
That in the end we are left with only words
To shore up our lives, to stave off the ruins So we make fine phrases as a blessing and a balm
For the battered ugliness of our brief span We must atone
Our mutual guilt or lose our dignity, our sense of tragedy Others may possess our souls if we abandon our humanity.