*
We Lay Stone
to lay Memory
keep our thoughts
Focused
In One Place
*
by placing one Stone
upon another
We fashion Order
from our inconsistencies
*
by fitting one stone
next to another
we generate Sense
to our Incongruous
Dealings
*
Build a Sequence from Chaos
*
Assemble Continuity
to our Story
*
We Are Stone layers
*
Art Work by Yaron Rosner
*
There is Comfort in Believing
Good & Evil
Are Two Separate and Opposing Entities
Keeps Us Safe
in a Black and White World
*
Reality, however, is Different
Choices offer themselves
at Every Step:
to do the right thing
is Not always the Easy thing
*
Not Simply an act of random kindness
Rather
Means Seeing the Humanity
Facing You
*
that Person who has States of Mind
As You Do
Hunger, Insomnia,
As You Do
walks their dog
As You Do
suffers headaches
pangs of joy
As You Do
*
The Minute we SEE the Other
As Less
We Descend a Slippery slope
Perpetuating
Evil in the most Ordinary way
*
This SIGHT is a Choice
*
unquestioned
it becomes
a Way of Life
*
Pour Papa
*
Photograph by Yaron Rosner
*
what were you thinking
as you repeatedly crawled
into Gunfire?
reaching for your Fallen
comrades
heaving them onto stretchers
all the while hugging
the Earth
Oblivious to explosions
impervious to Bullet Rain
*
was it youthful conviction
in immortality
or teeth gritting defiance
of Death?
*
Your gathered Freedom Fighters
pushed onwards
heartened by an enemy
retreating
seeing a glow
in what appeared
At Last
the Darkest Tunnel’s End
*
cleaning and dressing wounds
relieving Pain
where you could
carrying Them
desperately
close to your heart
as they took a last Breath
holding their hands
an Angel to the fevered
*
So many Fell
you survived
a Keeper of the Story
*
Those were Thunderous Times
Returning
to the small things
of ordinary life
awoke Torment
subdued by action
pursued you into the Everyday
Until
refusing to buckle
you Succumbed
*
the voices, so many
so vociferous,
so demanding
you became Two
like Wolves
they fought for your heart
in the end
only the one you fed
could win
*
*
On this Day
I write for You
*
On this Day
Our Memories Collide
Merge and Coalesce
make us that Single
Person with so many Others
where, with amalgamated
memories potentiating
each other
we become a part
of something so much Bigger
*
our personal wills ineffective
we can only feel
and re-feel
*
a Spiral of ever increasing
and decreasing
Intensity
*
On this Day
you and I
are One
Encompassing a Body
of Millions
*
whether of The Murdered
The Survivors
or The Saved
we are them
and each other
For a Day
*
On this Day
I write for Us
*
To my Father who Honored this Day with Fervor
*
*
Soaked in the Loss of 8 Million
Dead, Wasted and Mutilated
You Grew
Honoring them Religiously
Every November
the Sound of church Bells
Bugles
A Command to Memory
year after year
the struggle for freedom
its Maintenance
*
Vigilantly you moved ahead
Marked with the Impermanence
of your generation
it was shock
not surprise
When It Happened All Over Again
*
You engaged yourself
as you knew They had,
the Millions who Fought
for your Freedom,
you Honored them
by never giving up
and Fighting for Ours
*
The Romans
Fought, Conquered, Built
Engineered, Strove
A blend of enlightenment
and ruthlessness
they read papyrus books
Codices
furnished lavish Libraries
emulating the Egyptians
*
crisscrossing Europe with roads, aqueducts
and Arenas
they Ruled and Conquered
until they no longer did
*
the lengthy decline
immeasurable in real time
a steady collapse
such a cake
insufficiently leavened
cautiously sits instead of standing
from one generation to another
incrementally slipping
catching itself
then slipping a bit more
*
the Undoing of Civilization
culture, knowledge –
Worms yes, Invasions, Fire indeed
Time, certainly,
but more than that, Ignorance
engendering more Ignorance
until no one reads
except a handful in charge
No more principles of Life
only principles of Fear –
*
From illiteracy and terror
a darkness hovered for millennia:
the earth once round
was now flat, the sun
as center spurned
human Parthenogenesis
a fact
the importance of clean water, forgotten
questioning forbidden,
any attempt at dissolving dimness,
viciously repressed
*
Until ever so slowly,
we Progressed Back
to the Humanities
salvaging ancient manuscripts
repossessing reading, examination, discussion
simultaneously galvanized by
and galvanizing the Printing Press
Empowering Minds
at once Philosophical and Mathematical
Exposing a World
of Objective Reality
no more the realms of revelation
rather the laws of physics
no longer the punishing guilt and suffering
of an immaterial god
but cause and effect
of a Beautiful Sentient Universe
made of atoms, void
magnetic fields
*
and nothing else
*
Nails hammered to leather soles
striking the Cobblestone
Screaming in the Wooden silence
of those Black and Silver days
I heard them Go
Such a Tuning Fork, that resonance
is the Background of my life
the Tapestry of Noise against which
all else Echoes
Muttering incessantly I cannot die
hold on, lest the Memory fade
in the race to Forget
I am the Wave Length of those buildings
that are no longer
I am a Frequency to those who come
revisit the places of horror
we dare not Ignore
I resonate Relentless, such ghost pains
for those who will listen, remember
and Keep Living
For those who deny, won’t hear
I drive them to Tone Madness
I, I am Sound Memory.
Art Work by Yaron Rosner
I come with my Ancestors
to tell you a tale
of loss and acceptance
love and redemption
*
I bring with me
the long line of people
preceding my coming
they gather around my person
as I sit here to tell you
that no story is told
without the telling
of ones Forbearers
those who have passed on
their feats, failures
loves and fears
to us, their Continuance
*
I come to you today
with the stories of a people,
my people, told already
or untold, their stories
that are mine will be revealed
*
my Elders
the intrinsic matter
of my genetic make up
the fabric
of so many mysteries
a weft of understanding
woven into my soul
when I listen
*
my ancestors
loved or unloved
they are my life
and I, in the middle of my journey
am an Elder in the making
*
Remnants of my Uncle Jacob’s finer days
when, with my father and I trailing behind
we would make off to Wannsee,
spend the afternoon poking its Surface
with lines to which I hooked squirmy insects
meeting their soggy fate
in the gaping mouths of carp
Uncle Jacob had shown me how to fasten
the fleshy beasts, he used to say:
“With your small hands you should out-fasten
me very quickly!”, I never did.
Uncle Jacob had the largest palms I’d ever seen,
his fingers in comparison were thin and very long,
I imagined it was those spindly fingers
which fastened diamonds so nicely,
the large palm a secure surface
to hold them, assess their brilliance
without letting them drop into the dust
of precious metal and wood powder
He was such a Giant
Nothing worried him,
half his size, my Father knew better
the Black and Silver Cross
appearing Everywhere
foreshadowed an Evil
Never before Seen
Uncle Jacob wouldn’t listen, I did,
even the Trees seemed menacing
the Carp too hungry, the Water too green,
What would become of us, Where should we go?
Painting By Felix Vallotton
Like an Ancient edifice
Sinking into surrounding water
Every year an inch, a foot
The encroaching liquid surges
The Foundation disappears
The first floor windows dissolve
The 2d floor disintegrates
Engulfed by time Rising
Dismantled in this sea of Constant Change
The Story too disperses
Maintained by the Living who Care
Remember
Are connected somehow to this Structure
Survivors dwindling
Soon the waters will swallow up
The remains
Who will apply themselves
To the memory of what will be nothing
more than an immovable surface?
And Why?
Times passes, Memories live on
In a Handful who Recall
Repeat, Remind
Who listens?
D-Day June 6 1944