Polish Flowers

(Lines written between the Gas Chambers and the Mountains of Jerusalem)

A Poem for Yom HaShoah 

(The train tracks leading to the gas chambers of Auschwitz on a warm spring day)

Polish Flowers

Flowers bloom
Across the countryside,
Purple, beautiful,
Magnificent. 

Blooming in the warm 
Sun of springtime, 
Their roots are shallow,
Young. 
They do not know the winter. 

Bitter cold and ice and snow 
Blossomed here once.
Today you wouldn’t know it, 
The breeze is warm and sweet. 

The earth remembers,
Soil old and trodden,
Above we stand, 
Smiling. 
Below, where all is buried. 

Green grass is soft 
But strong beneath the feet, 
The flowers are resilient too,
But protest quite strongly, 
“Please, don’t tread on me.

My beauty was hard earned,
I did not grow peacefully, 
Many others did not make it,
To them I owe my young beauty.

Work is work,
And growth is growth, 
But I remember always,
My silent oath.” 

Polish flowers bloom,
Purple and majestic,
Over millions of tombs,
Silent but still restless. 

“If it was not for them, 
There would never be an I,
The deeds of men are horrid,
But I grew from tears they’ve cried.” 

Polish flowers are small, 
But endless like the sea, 
I pray their strength and beauty, 
Might resonate in me. 
They left Poland long ago, 
When they were weak and pale,
But they’ve grown strong and colorful,
Beneath the stones of Eretz Yisrael. =

~

Spread Love, Spread Light,

Am Yisrael Chai