remembrance

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Remembrance
In a time not
So long before mine
The smoke of spirits
Bent but unbroken
Choked the sky in acrid clouds
Look, They said
There are your parents, your children
Your brothers and sisters
They said You will vanish
Wiped from memory
But memory remains
And so do You
Shalom, my friends,
My brothers, my sisters
Shalom.

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About this piece: Today (April 20th) was on my calendar as Holocaust Remembrance Day in Israel. My bad. Remembrance Day was actually last week. Today is Israel's Independence Day. So I'm remembering late it seems. Which is okay, I think. My feeling is that this remembrance ought to be worldwide. Today, tomorrow, and all tomorrows to come.

About the photo: Public domain image. Not mine.

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silence

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"Silence is Golden."
Who says so?
Who decided,
And why,
That silence is
Something to be valued,
Prized as gold?

Who was it
That was possessed
Of enough wisdom
That he could know
The nature of something
That by that very nature
Is unknowable?

Is silence gold?
Or is it dross?
Or is it neither of these?
Is it as it appears,
Simply formless, shapeless
An absence of anything, really.
A void.

The airless vacuum
Of the space that
Surrounds me
Engulfs me
The highwayman that
Steals my breath
My sleep.

If only
I could bring
The silence without
Inside where it might
Serve some purpose
Quiet the chorus within
I might feel differently.

This image and poem -- along with many others -- is featured in my book Distant Echoes, available from Amazon.com

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About this piece: I'm not a morning person. Never have been. So waking up at 4 AM is pretty disorienting. Nothing else is awake at that hour. Not the birds, not even the squirrels -- the absence of which someone I know once called "the last word in stillness". Turns out though, that it can inspire... something anyway. Not just this piece, but the "prequel" of this one were born from it.

About the photo: No, I wasn't out shooting this one at 4 AM. I was looking for an image of silence, and you have to admit, she's not going to say much.

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