A church has a tall nave, rocketing arched windows
that shine with Middle Ages plumb colours- orange
and blue- pure proud columns carry your roof-
on the left wall Yeshua ben Yoseph's Cross Way.-
via dolorosa and in the nooks stalls, standards, placards
cry their message into the lofty airspace
heads grey dark, covered, bare, blonde, brown
huddle in the pews and behind- would i pile
thousands upon one other to fill the gap b'tween sky
and smoothly paved earth- where the altar stood
a crowd of synagogal choirs drops heavy sounds
into the vast oceans surrounding them-
as if to fill the gap b'tween us silent sitters and
the altar- the cantor from Toronto cast a somber
dry tough wailing tune- only Treblinka i
could discern in his words- but as little as i
understood i felt the guilt- to be there & bear the wail
and the babylon cry psalm
Lower Saxony's Prime Minister delivered a dutiful
warm conscientious speech- though my poilitical
enemy i honoured it well and heard of my former
school having arranged last year a reading of a
French Auschwitz survivor poet- two older women
swooned and had to be taken away to the ambulance
Marion fitted later my visit into the box
named Roman Catholic- as all who come from
Poland are RC believers- she's an expert on
my mum's Polish accent - (which Claudia
mistook for Turkish- ' A Turkish woman called')
being German but her Dad's family being Polish.
Hannoverian as she was she didn't realize that
the Hannover Market Church is Protestant
But believers in God visit any church, do they not?
Stereotypes pave Marion's way but this
budges me not as I hover and float way
over puny pricking hurts as these.
Michael Witkowski
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/auschwitz-liberation-60th-anniversary-memorial-c/