I Remember

I remember a child vaguely aware of her 
parents' hushed conversations, a topic unfit 
for children's emerging consciousness.
I remember the dark gloom of apprehension.
I remember the anguish in my parents' eyes
and voices, the hopelessness, the futile anger.
I remember that child now older beginning to
realize she was of a people being slaughtered
by a malign force of unstoppable magnitude. I
remember the forlorn disbelief that human
beings could be be slated for death and that
no human agency made an effort to intervene.
I remember searching among my father's papers
turning pages in strangely published booklets
with words a child was unable to decipher
but which held a stark reality that revealed
itself nonetheless of dread and disaster. Oh, I
remember remonstrating with my father that
what he and his friends feared could not Daddy
possibly happen and I remember that hollow
look in his eyes, my mother's frantic tears. I
remember, I will never forget a world unmoved 
by the plight of these distasteful people who 
must after all have committed some evil to 
earn such contempt and violent institutionalized 
retribution. Oh, you don't recall? You might not
since the world at large doesn't appear to have
been very affected. I have on the other hand 
lived a long lifetime of remembrance.