PRAGUE TRANSPORTS: OCTOBER, 1942
(FOR PAUL CELAN
1920-1970)

Trains, transports
from Prague to Lodz
citizens from Berlin
cannot find
a place of peace
on the earth,
what greater sin
is to take away lives
along the Vtlava river
by the Old New Synagogue,
who could have imagined
such deeds against the Creator
than the history of murderers
in their victimized strife
now living as a remnant
out of dead dry bones
from shamed skin
as numbers on one arm
on days to atone
in chant of chants
toward God's  writing
in the Torah
to give birth in shame
from talented names
lost to the sky birds
on a parole of souls
before the firing squads,
imagine an engraving of life
its memorial writing
cut with a knife into a stone
a body of words may rise
from explained editorials
before closed doors
from the lawyer and prosecutors
past all just words
in the higher and lower ranks
from crimes of blame
no one may forgive
history's timely lessons
for its innocent
grandsons and daughters
who visit the Shoah
carrying its human cargo
on its memory cards
or to lay flowers
on old unmarked cemetery graves
in the Prague snow and rain
as the absent poet Celan
is saved by his silence
again and again.