Dept. of Remembrance
Treblinka
It's almost the end of National Poetry Month. I'd meant to post this on Yom HaShoah.
How was it, in those deep forests
with the tall trees that grew in soldiered ranks,
that brought up suddenly on silent green and barren meadows -
how was it, in the shadowed centres of those forests
that absorbed eastern mists and skewed yellow sunlight -
how was it that somehow, in the pure and dark green stillness
- so clean and empty that a man might whirl in panic,
searching for air to breathe, for something to cover him -
the trees did not know?
They knew nothing.
It was years in the future, or far away, or long ago.
It was nothing to do with them.
But if they had known, they might have cracked and splintered,
dried, lost their leaves, leaned, fallen.
Until the barren meadows,
that once upon a time or sometime in the future
heaved and shook with death,
were all that remained.
1987
This entry was originally posted at http://kaffyr.dreamwidth.org/659719.html?mode=reply, where there are currently
comments. You can comment there or here, but prefer to read over on DW. You can comment there using open ID if you don't have a DW account.
It's almost the end of National Poetry Month. I'd meant to post this on Yom HaShoah.
How was it, in those deep forests
with the tall trees that grew in soldiered ranks,
that brought up suddenly on silent green and barren meadows -
how was it, in the shadowed centres of those forests
that absorbed eastern mists and skewed yellow sunlight -
how was it that somehow, in the pure and dark green stillness
- so clean and empty that a man might whirl in panic,
searching for air to breathe, for something to cover him -
the trees did not know?
They knew nothing.
It was years in the future, or far away, or long ago.
It was nothing to do with them.
But if they had known, they might have cracked and splintered,
dried, lost their leaves, leaned, fallen.
Until the barren meadows,
that once upon a time or sometime in the future
heaved and shook with death,
were all that remained.
1987
This entry was originally posted at http://kaffyr.dreamwidth.org/659719.html?mode=reply, where there are currently
comments. You can comment there or here, but prefer to read over on DW. You can comment there using open ID if you don't have a DW account.