October 1, 2009

THE HOLOCAUST

George Segal

like red trillium
poking up
thru thick
leaves dark
menstrual blood
polling at the
bottom when
they opened the
gas chambers:
the bodies frozen,
merging, leaning
toward an imaged
light behind
the wire, a family
fused in the claws
of each other,
a daughter
climbing her
mother’s side,
up past her
shoulders, as
she did as
a baby as if
the little air left
would help her
hold on

by Lyn Lifshin


*Lyn's website: http://www.lynlifshin.com/books.htm

1 comments:

Anonymous said...

One does not have to be Jewish to respond to these poems. The first poem especially sent a shiver through me. And then one is reminded that we have people today going around saying the Holocaust never happened. It happened all right and it makes the Potato Famine that my ancestors went through seem like after-school detention. So sad. It's time to take the people who deny it in 2009 seriously and make certain they come to understand quickly how wrong they are. "Never again" is too weak a response.

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