Inspired by Dr. Victor Frankl and my father
Stream of Time
A poem about love and the silent defiance of the defeated
The pages flew in the wind. We lingered for a heartbeat, a heart beat long For someone ahead or someone behind For what is a moment in the stream of time For today, together we fly.
The binder, the cover, the bookmarks, the glue They let us out, for they were through. I had numbers on me Branded by those, with irons on them Searing skin, muscle and bone See, I was free.
Never just one, never two Or even three or four digits long Never five, not even six Not seven or eight or nine.
We all had numbers burnt on us Like on those who flew in the past Too long to count like the letter Pi Too hard to call us by.
But if you looked closely at every eleven that flew The tenth of us had a zero in the end For that is how it all began One at a time Till there were none.
They told us we were Jews Gay and gypsies, even Christians new. Sometimes we fought for our freedom In Kolyma, Wuhan, Kashmir and Cuba In the Congo mining for kryptonite In America for sugar.
Fallen by the leaves We were cowards and we lied With tears in our eyes We pleaded Yet we tried.
To hurry on our own And leave in our time A heartbeat behind A heart beat long.
Now it was all no more in the past How we cowered was long forgiven, laid to dust. As dove after dove we leapt into the blue In the stream of time, this is how we flew.
