Thoughts on Absurdities Humans Are Capable of...

I came across a site accidentally while doing some research. It's easy to forget those horrible things in History no one really wants to remember, for our insensitivity to it after awhile.

I had written a poem about children. When I think of children, I think of how resilient they seem, yet so fragile. I think about their moody blues, their silliness, their moments of clarity struck in their faces like hearing a ghost story. I think about how children love to run, especially if where they are running to, is for something sweet, or tasty, or fun, or mischievous sometimes...but they love to run.

And then I came across this site, and I felt sick. I cried. I thought about the many, many tiny little feet running to their death. And I wanted to take it all back. I thought about the REASON for their death: because they were the wrong kind of religion; the wrong kind of people, culture, language....whatever...but the wrong kind nonetheless. But they were also children. No one protected the children. Their parents couldn't because they were being killed the very same way. I thought I would share with you today how my heart felt about this terrible subject of the Holocaust, and why we must NEVER FORGET!

Image Compliments of

Michael V. Metzger

Little Feet

© Lydia Nolan-Ruiz



My G-D! Look at all those little feet!

Driven in the cold, driven, those little feet!

Never to go to carnival or a picture show.

Little feet burn dry, wading in the snow—

Dirty, aching, driven running feet into the cold. . . .



My G-D! Look at all those little feet!

Run! Run little feet! Don’t gaze upon the piles!

Down you go—the moon aglow—piled on the deep, deep heap—

Slide into the massive grave, grave so dark and deep. . . .



Every hurried stride your unknown torture.

Every movement closer to your fate unknown.

Under clouds and cold, your G-D in Heaven:

Shortly, meet the Lover of your soul—



Who can fathom depths of such a hatred.

Who could plan so carefully, evil intent.

Hardly a life's breath, G-D created to be sacred.

Exterminate? What evil humans can invent...

What I wish is sacred love and sanctity,

For those little feet that took hatred and murder away
Resurrect our sorrow in place of inhumanity

Resurrect all the little angels—all eternal day

All the little children, driven, running on those little feet...



Kiss these little feet, envision spirits lost in haste,

Little striped angels will we be good enough to meet


Running finally to a cloud of peace and joy, and space…

(...Please forgive our idiocy....)




footnote: Please check out this site, read and remember, so that it will not happen EVER, any more...
http://isurvived.org/Memorial-CHILDREN.html 
 

"The first to perish were the children, abandoned orphans

The world's best, the bleak earth's brightest

These children might have been our comfort

From these sad, mute, bleak faces

Our new dawn might have risen"

- From "Song of the Murdered Jewish People"

by Yitzhak Katzenelson