Sarah L. Hawes-Hernandez

Where once death ran rampant

Grass grows

Spring green shoots, tender

and sweet, 

undulate softly, glistening with dew, 

pointed tips bathed 

in dawn's fragile rays, sprout from

ash stained earth,

Where once death ran rampant,

Grass now grows.

Embankment behind glass, leather, canvas, 

wood, sum indiscernible, 

 

dusty, frayed, unmoving, 

reticent witness, resolute, unerring,

runty red sandal, strap torn, solitary,

forgotten, mate obscured, 

shuffled feet, slamming doors,

hesitant whispers, silenced screams,

leave everything, take nothing with you,

Shoes, behind glass

My mother calls me, and I run laughing out the door,

I am weightless, impatient, I cannot be constrained. 

I skip towards the trees. I want to scale their twisted limbs to the tippiest top.

There I am a King and a Lord, and no one can reach me. 

 

My father's hand holds mine, and I am nine feet tall. 

His latest gift, a little chestnut mink stole, encircles my shoulders, just like Savta! 

He walks beside me, his step shortened to mine, 

waving at each person we pass down the broad boulevard. 

 

I did it! I took my first step! I did it as I fall flat on my rump. I am a big boy now! 

Soon, I will walk like Mama and Papa do, soon I will run and jump. For now, I reach for the table, to pull myself up, 

I did it! I did it! Now I will do it again.

 

The new boy is here, he has red hair. I've never felt like this before. 

My heart races, I can't focus, is he looking at me? I want to talk to him,

But instead, I sneak glances his way, hoping he will come to me.  

 

The Yad slips in my sweaty grasp. I nearly drop it. Where was I? Oh yes, I found my place. 

Am I doing this right? I don't want to mess up. My Abba is watching, my Ema is crying. 

I can feel myself growing up. 

 

Papa says my bridge is the finest he's ever seen. Such strength, such stability, an elephant would not fall through. 

I don't know whether I believe him, it's only matchsticks and glue, 

but someday, just maybe, I can build a real one of steel. 

Do they let girls build bridges? 

 

E minor, G Sharp, A flat, the mischievous notes frolic in my mind, 

the chords soaring and dipping, even the birds are jealous.

My eyes close, my fingers dance on the edge of my desk. I can't wait to get home. 

 

I am lost in another world, full of elves and fairies. A world I have created in the pages of my diary. 

I sometimes escape there when the world around me grows dark and frightening. 

Mother says it won't last, but I don't believe her. 

 

I can't wait to grow up, I have so much to do. I want to take a train from one end of Europe to the other. 

I want to see America. I want to go to university to study science.

I want to have children of my own. 

 

Mama says I can do anything. So, I've decided I will study the stars. 

I already know all the locations of the constellations. Cassiopeia is my favorite. 

I really can do anything. I can be a doctor, a scientist, a sculptor, a writer, a teacher, anything at all. I have so many things I still want to do. 

Mama, why won't they give us any water? I'm cold, Papa. 

Please, I want to go home. I want to grow up. 

you have taught me of open arms…

When reason is eclipsed by hate, 

and reluctance to speak truth pervades, 

where furtive whispers breathed behind shuttered doors,

and subtle pointing on crowded streets precede denunciation, 

deportation, death

I will remember winding cattle trains 

ferrying you through frozen nights, needlelike hunger

your companion, 

the teeming ghettos, withered feet in tattered shoes

shuffling endlessly on gritty sidewalks,

the fortified showers with steel trap doors and poisoned air, 

behind flower-draped wooden and barbed wire fences,

I will gaze upon photographs stolen through dirty windows,

charcoal sketches scratched out in dark corners,

and paintings crafted in secret,

I will read manuscripts buried in fields for safekeeping,

under floorboards, and in cupboards,

beside wispy sheets of music,

and diaries chronicling crimes,

each damning piece a mosaic of evidence,

an eternal voice louder than any human could utter, 

I will remember you showed me the beautiful kaleidoscope 

that is humanity, where color of skin is no longer a weapon,

And faith restores what religion has torn down,

Because of what you have shown me,

I will not forget, and I shall never again remain silent 

when hatred eclipses reason, 

I will speak out in the face of tyranny, 

When fear builds walls and lies become truth,

I will open my arms, my hands, my voice

Because of what you have shown me.