Striking my Heart
Ilan Braun
My sisters, my brothers
You have been killed
And, I, ALIVE
Can only shout & lament
Striking my heart with a tight fist
In sad memory
You, despised like dogs
You, butchered like lambs
You, burned like ordinary logs
In the air that the greedy world breathes
You are HERE
Lost souls, so light, so translucent
And yet, still THERE
Among the white birches ?
In the fallow lands ?
In the deep humus of the plains ?
In the diaphanous winds ?
From the past's fog
Emerge strange wanderers
Dwelling in my nights
And I hear their voices rising
Like a moaning wind
Their anger sounds like thunder
Men, don't you remember ?
We were your sisters and brothers
Your mothers and fathers
Your daughters and sons
Our blood flowed freely
In the river of life
Our souls were afire with prayers
Men, don't you see ?
After contempt and hate: Death
What more ?
Oblivion in lieu of a shroud I
n organized amnesia
Like a deadly poison
Injected in our hearts
Reduplicating the infamous Death
Help! They are killing us again
Drowned into the muddy chapters
Of a newly written History
Denied for ever
Please remember!
Preserve us as we were
Yesterday and the day before
Pure and intact
E-mail: Rufina Bernardetti Silva Mausenbaum
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Rufina Bernardetti Silva Mausenbaum