Poetry Page - Grades 7-12
From I Promised I Would Tell by Sonia Schreiber Weitz
Cattle Cars
Herded together in the burning sun,
the box-car sealed and standing still
on a hill at the end of the world.
Once I was hungry-last night, last year?
Once I knew no fear ... once there were no trains,
now I dream of rains and tropical fruit,
my throat is on fire. How long has it been-
how long since I've seen my sister?
Panic grips my heart and I start to shake...
There she is, Blaneczka, alive, awake,
she touches my brow and cries,
someone whimpers ... someone dies.
I smile and my lips crack. I am happy, but why?
I forget, I sigh-so hard to recall:
the ghetto ... the wall ... and my mother gone.
Perhaps she is dead and resting in peace.
I hope she was spared these indignities,
my lovely Mateczka-no, I couldn't bear
to watch her shrink and fade away-
like Romek's mother; ugly and mad,
the shaven head, the greedy eyes-
so utterly dehumanized...
But God is merciful-He is!
Did He not spare my mother this?
These years of agony and pain,
or is God insane-like me?
My sister-my keeper, whispers in my ear:
"Be quiet, my dear, this is a selection"
yet despite the action-I grin:
"I win, I win." My mother is dead
but instead of tears, I laugh and rejoice...
Oh the choiceless-choices we learned to embrace
... in that other world ... in that other place,
where children burned while mankind stood by
... and the universe has yet to learn why,
has yet to learn why.