It fell to me - Bill Denham

[Larry Robinson]

It fell to me

 
It fell to me.
            I don’t know why.
            How can we know these things?
            It fell to me to dismantle,
            to take down the fortifications,
            to take apart myself
            not so to destroy
            but to try to understand,
            to hope to know
            the inner workings
            of a single human heart
            and go from there—
            to Auschwitz,
            for example,
            as an end point
            of all that brought us there
            or as a new beginning for me,
            my own very private mirror
            that shows a heart quite able
            to morph such an image
            of unspeakable acts
            reflected there
            never, never to be done again
            into others of their kind
            that go unnoticed, unseen, 
            unrecognized as such
            until their carnage has been done
            and then we say once more,
            “Never again! Never again!”,
            to ourselves and go on—
            to drones over Pakistan
            for example, run by little boys
            with joy sticks and video cams
            from half a universe away
            and think, no doubt,
            if they think at all
            of what they do,
            of what we ask them to do
            in our name and with our money,
            think, no doubt, that they are fighting evil.
            “A silly comparison,” you say,
            “Auschwitz and drones.
            What have you learned 
            in all your dismantling 
            if this is where you end—
            with drones and joy sticks?”
            And where would you suggest I look, dear listener,
            that I might understand more clearly 
            what I am complicit in—
            Orlando, perhaps?
            Where, dear listener, would you look?
            Where would you look?

	- Bill Denham
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