Among The Ruins, The Wildflowers Grow - Jana Liba Klenburg

[Larry Robinson]

Among The Ruins, The Wildflowers Grow

Arbeit Macht Frei,
“Work Makes Free”
inscribed on top of the gate
and Auschwitz opens its doors.

In a collective chill
to a rhythm of soft sobs,
we enter the gate of death
some of us holding hands 
not daring to look at each other
we walk in 
and hope to understand.

“If I must see, please God, hold my hand.”
Hand in hand
we march on the train tracks
the beat of my pace confused with 
the roar of human cattle trains
packed with children’s terrorized hearts
we walk, God’s hand still in mine,
just as He walked with those terrorized hearts 
when they bartered with death,
for God is everywhere, so they say…

Acres and acres and acres
of nazi commerce—the business of death.
They had blueprints,
Skilled electricians and engineers
who washed off the stench of burned flesh
and night after night sat for a warm meal 
with their golden children of blue sight

Why? I ask
with my fist against the sky.
Why?
and the wind gently answers
with a faint smell of singed flesh.
The path changes color as we walk
from gray—
oh God, whose ashes are we walking on?—
to dark red…
Is the blood rising from the ground?
We are walking on earth that God forgot.
Faraway, a voice with no face,
A tour guide speaks German,
for a moment 
a raging agony collapses time
now and then become one
rendering God ineffectual.

Suddenly a woman’s burning scream
rips the heat of the sun
and in that cry, we hear the six million.

Facing the ovens
Michael prays El Male Rachamim
the prayer “Oh God of mercy”—
and among the ruins
the landscape of corpses,
huddled together even in death,
reveals itself among the wild flowers
and golden grass.

Still wandering forlorn on earth that God forgot
we cross the gateway of help
into dark barracks filled with homeless prayers
where Jews lay famished
one on top of another, month after month.

A ray of light
filters through a crack
stealing a piece of sky.

Someone runs out of the barrack to throw up outside 

Names on the bricks, scratched with fingernails
reveal themselves through the dark—
Sara, Esther, Golde…--
and inside my head I hear myself scream
Grandma, where is your name?!

Drowned in holocaust
we turn to return

Our safe bus is waiting for us…
Amiram picks up and clutches a stone
shedding tears through the sweat in his hand.
How can we leave?
Beloved ones, how can we leave you here?!
And the birds perched on the entrance door
Where Arbeit Macht Frei
continue singing

	- Jana Liba Klenburg
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