Far away trains

My holiday this year shall be

– unplanned – a lengthy train journey

from here in Westerbork to the

resettlement camps of the East.

I know, I know what your camps are;

I’ve heard the whispers in the night.

My neighbours?  Packed in like cattle,

deprived of water, food and light.

I have a private car, paid for

by my collaborative words:

my praise written for the praiseless,

my defence for the defenceless,

my betrayal of my true thoughts.

I draw brocade curtains apart:

the flat lands roll away outside.

Like guilt borne from the guiltless.

Like guile borne from the guileless.

Like… all these things I cannot bear!

The Maharal  won’t walk for us,

the showers will not make us clean.

This train will haul six million souls,

who should have had the chance to be.

You wrote me letters, like my friends; 

words better than my own.  I brought

them with me in my satchel-bag.

Each one could be a death sentence.

I take them individually

in hands that shake from more than age

more than rage

and read them one last time, holding 

their words in both my heart and mind

so I can tear, methodically,

your written love and care to squares,

commit them to the wind beyond

the window, where I pray they will 

sow hope wherever they may fall.

You know, you’re just a number now?

Tattooed in blue, inside your wrist.

But numbers are platonic,

unlike us they will persist.

At Auschwitz we must disembark,

the guards that take me are polite.

They take my empty satchel-bag,

and will not look me in the eye.

The crash of jackboots, martial drums,

are ringing in a brand new age

that now resounds like thunder as 

we shuffle joylessly away.

The train departs, returning home –

with secret cargo I have stowed –

to bring more men.  Atrocity

will build upon atrocity.

Your handkerchief, soft linen, soak’d

with loving tears goes back with it:

I’ve never done enough for that,

I don’t deserve to keep your heart.