Never Forgotten

This is the day of sacred trust
when the international community
has pledged to observe the
unspeakable tragedy of a people
whose presence on Earth was
selectively extinguished by state
decree and inhumanity on a
genocidal scale of unmitigated
horror that left a postwar world
reeling in disbelief. Never to forget
forever on guard, a recurrence
forbidden by all that is human
sacred and history-haunting. This
is the day that a gracious and
smiling Pope welcomes the head
of state of another Aryan nation
that threatens the existence of a
Jewish state, with annihilation
by yet another triumphalist 
ideology. While Europe, the 
charnel house of its Jews, now
awaits anxiously the imminent
opportunity to open the doors
of trade and profit to that
same nuclear-driven travesty.

 

Yiddish Gothic

Shtetl-born, the era of the
transition from Polish pogroms
to the Aryan Nazi Third Reich
establishing its death camps where
no inconvenient furor of protest
was anticipated, the presciently
few sailed off to America and
there finding no streets paved
with gold, men took humble
employment in the trade of
peddling; broken furniture,
trinkets, schmata, and live
chickens from farm to market.
Hard work for pittance pay,
while women laboured in
sweat shops now exploiting
poverty-stricken women in
the Philippines. He was the stern
unbending paterfamilias their
children enraged easily and at
their own risk. She was the gossipy
meek balabusta vainly stretching
hope to make ends meet. Their
struggle to survive taught their
offspring what the parents knew
by experience; the world was an
unlovely place with few beckoning
opportunities. The second generation
adeptly grasped those elusive
chances fatalistically inuring
themselves against failure
attracting to their worldly success
the envy and the enmity of the 
latest crop of anti-Semitic haters.

 

The Father The Son

 

They lean muscle   and sinew
into their work
minds free to wander
tongues hanging silent
in the roofs of their mouths.

Companions   they find comfort
in close presence
each teacher to the other
wordlessly
          carefully
full of care for the moment.

They are masters of the mind
but yet lovers of hand's efforts
they dexterously play ideas
one on the other
                casually
cut wood to fit delineated form
sand and smooth
            shave and stain
two jacks of variable trades.

 

 

Dunderheaded

 

Dunderheaded

Children subjected to medical experiments in Auschwitz.
[from The Pictorial History of the Holocaust, ed. Yitzhak Arad. New York: Macmillan, 1990]

Dunderheaded

It's a good trick if you can do it
and you can do it with winsome
sunny ways, placing the skills of
a thespian-born to the tedious task
of empathizing upon the grave
subject of genocide. The mullahs
of Iran set a rictus of scorn as they
contest the very notion of their
Aryan brethren plastering the
Holocaust into history while vowing
their effort will be far more effective.
On this solemn day of remembrance
Europe hastens to enrich its coffers
with Iranian trade and investment
just as surely as Europe's soil was
enriched with the byproduct of
carbonized Jewish lives consumed
in the Third Reich's crematoria.
But Canada has a junior Trudeau whose
official posting of commemoration
slides elegantly past awkward mention 
of Jews, while fulsomely lamenting
man's inhumanity to man. "On this
day", his statement waxes eloquently,
"we pay tribute to the memory of
the millions of victims murdered
during the Holocaust. We honour
those who survived atrocities at the
hands of the Nazi regime, and
welcome their courageous stories
of hope and perseverance", naming none
lest one give unintended offence.

On this day, we pay tribute to the memory of the millions of victims murdered during the Holocaust. We honour those who survived atrocities at the hands of the Nazi regime, and welcome their courageous stories of hope and perseverance.
The Holocaust is a stark reminder of the dangers and risks of allowing hate, prejudice, and discrimination to spread unchallenged. It also reminds us that silence must never be an option when humanity is threatened.
As we pause to educate ourselves and our families on the bitter lessons of the Holocaust, we also strengthen our resolve to work with domestic and international partners to continue defending human rights and condemning intolerance. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau

Intrusion

 

 

Man proposes nature disposes and so

should your plans for a briskly cold

winter day include a saunter

through frozen winter trails

to touch nature's raw mysterious base

yet be aware the forest has its own rules

of engagement. In the brief hush of

twilight when stealthy dusk begins

to infiltrate the fastness of that

elemental ecology the soft twitter

of birds as they settle for the night

the last scurry of squirrels as they

make for their nests prepares the

forest for daylight's expulsion where

above its canopy a crescent moon appears

wind no longer rustles dry leaves

the surrounding trees stand straight

as sentries questioning your presence

and all too soon your penetration within

that intimately closed system's unwelcome.

 

 

Unrepentant Guardians

 

 

One could claim them to be models of good 

behaviour even though such a statement is a 

bit of a stretch but they are endearing little 

creatures and as child proxies fulfill almost all 

expectations in companionship, entertainment 

and a focus for our parental void in our dotage. 

Two very small, black and furry, wide-eyed

Poodles intelligent and stubborn, devoted and 

demanding. Our thoughts are to provide them 

with security and opportunities to view the world 

as their own and they do vocally advertise their 

presence while leaving hints wherever they've been. 

We are however left troubled by their aversion to

the presence of others of their kind to whom

their hostility is beyond palpable and gives us

reason to question whether we have gone a tad

too far in patterning our little charges after

ourselves, leading to soul-searching introspection:

is it conceivable that we subconsciously emit

a similar, quieter air of resistance in the presence

of others like ourselves, or are our little charges

repaying in like kind their version of security?

 

 

The Comfort of Love

 

 

The soul is the essence of our existence

for we are what it is, even as it reflects what

we are; our consciousness of all that we see

hear and cling to, it is our working mind

our reminder of our being, incorporeal

an unknown life-essence, an impulse and

primal compulsion. If it can be seen anywhere

that place can be deep within the looking

glass of the eyes, ethereal and haunting.

The eyes of a child reflect surprise and

curiosity, trust and need, the soul emerging

to become what it will. As those eyes

record what they see they augment that

soul in a compendium of experience and

emotion the innocence replaced by other

ineffable reflections of humanity redolent

of hope and disappointment, regret and

self-remonstration, the fortunate among

them enveloped in the comfort of love.