Scattered humanity condenses
Into confinement in the annex
Hiding behind the bookcase
Because intolerance turned dislike to hate
Then fear stirs that hate into conflict
And conflict boils over in destruction.
In the cell of self-examination
Half-dead in the out-of-body experience
Introspection teaches lessons
Highlighting the conflicts of a lifetime
Unresolved in the day to day
Of every close encounter.
Potatoes buried underground
Hidden in the depths of the dark
Stored in the hiding place of seclusion
Are dug up to rot in concentration
Unnumbered in anonymity
Anticipating Auschwitz.
Interned in Egypt but remembered
Detained in Babylon but not overlooked
Now locked in an upstairs flat
With only extermination in view
As they're marched out of sight
Genocidally removed from society
All iniquity is laid on one of them [1]
Blamed for our universal short-comings
Exposed in self-revelation
Betrayed, arrested, killed.
His death seems increasingly irrelevant
While the world remembers her.
April 2009
After visiting the Anne Frank House, Amsterdam
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[1] Isaiah 53: 6
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