anymore.
where birds of a new generation
chirp
above a pile of rocks
carved with ‘Never again.’
Not a leaf stirs in the silence -
a silence that doesn’t
want to wake up
and remember.
This was where they all
disembarked -
the ones who would never
board another train.
This was where,
the fathers and mothers
who ran
scared and unashamed
before their children
to board a train
in stations far away,
arrived.
This was where the children
too afraid to travel alone
before their mother tearlessly
consoled them,
‘You’ll be safe’
arrived.
And this was the path
they all walked -
this dirt trail
once devoid of hope.
This was where they
shed their last
strand of dignity
and stood naked,
packed skin-to-skin
hoping waiting praying
for the trickle from the showerhead.
Before their doors were sealed
and the guard yelled
“Ivan, Wasser!”
and the terrible engines
roared to life.
Standing on this
quiet cold earth
generations later -
a tourist with a camera
from a land that almost slept
peacefully though it all -
instead of singing like the birds
I,
I think
I get it.
I read this poem on caferati a few days ago. It has haunted me since. It is really very moving. In a few ords you have said it all- even our own apathy as a younger generation from a "land that slept through it"