Having read an incredibly powerful piece written by a Lithuanian from the town of Molotai who tries to come to terms with his town’s dark history (read it, it’s worth it!) I wrote a poem about national conscience and the holocaust.
Here it is:
How do you clean the blood?
How do you clean the blood?
That’s congealed
Under fingernails
Between teeth
Lodged in a soul
Smudged in the crevices
Of a conscience
That denies its own existence?
Do you pinch your nostrils
At the rotten stench
Fasten blinkers
And vainly blacken the etched image
Of bodies piled in a pit?
Or speak empty words
To seemingly quieten the screams
That seep into your dreams?
Do you delude yourselves
That years going by will cleanse
That darkening stain
Of blood
That feeds the roots of virgin trees?
Do you dream that forgetfulness forgives?
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