Holocaust

A Poem, By Joy Aletheia Stevens

~

Listen to the silence,

If only for but a moment,

And in the silence

You’ll hear the screams.

~

Feel a taste of terror.

Know a moment’s fear.

Feel the coldness

With which the air teams.

 ~

It all happened so long ago,

But shadows still remain.

A remembrance, sacred,

But with no shrine.

~

Evils, to unspeakable, thought,

To horrible to be wrought.

Yet such was done.

Came to pass, such a crime.

 ~

Stare now into innocent eyes

And watch as they slowly die.

Watch now, and tell me,

How can this be?

 ~

Long ago, it happened true,

But the memory, forever new.

Has only so many decades past?

But half a century?

 ~

My memory does not extend that far,

But my mind, it still does mar.

For, in the silence,

I hear them as they die.

~

But let such memory live on!

I wish it well, let it not be gone!

For in the memory

An immortal truth does lie.

 ~

That if we remember such extermination,

Remember with guilt, and without question,

Then we, maybe can see, can prevent,

And never let such, again, be realized.

 ~

And so in our memory lie’s the shrine,

In our thought’s, in our mind.

In the silence, in the moment,

When we, again, hear the screams.

~

I wrote this poem years ago. I share it now in light of the horrors happening in Iraq at the hands of Isis. If you are like me you can barely hear the stories and acknowledge them as true. They are just to horrifying. It is easier to look away.

Don’t look away.

If you’re like me you feel like there is nothing you can do so what good could dwelling on it accomplish.

Don’t look away.

Because if you were on that mountain, or one of the ones killed by the sword or butchered, you would want someone to KNOW what happened to you.

Be a person who knows.

And if you were on a mountain with men waiting to kill you and ready to exterminate you just because of how you identify yourself, ready to rob you of your rights to a voice,  you would want some one to speak.

Be a person who speaks.

And if you were looking at death, looking at you, knowing it was coming for your loved ones, you would want someone to pray.

Be a person who prays.

I’m not asking you to Google the images of dead children. I’m not asking you to read all the stories. I’m not asking you to flood your social streams or call your senator.

Just don’t look away.

Be a person who knows.

Be a person who speaks.

Be a person who prays.

Thank you.

~Joy Aletheia Stevens

Photo Credit: Candle light silhouette by Frank Morales R (CC BY-SA 2.0)