Not Only in the Six Day War
Charles Fishman
Not only in the Six-Day War
but in the locked ghettoes
there were heroes,
in the selections, the cattle trains,
the forced marches, even under torture,
as the gas embraced them, in smoke
billowing, in the blood ditches,
even in the death sleep after liberation,
the DP camps, frail ships, desert
massacres, even in hospitals and orchards,
kibbutz nurseries, zealots' outposts,
even in the day-to-day dream of remembering
what was ours, over thousands of years,
in this moment when I remind you,
my sisters and brothers, how courageous
we have been, how bravely
we have arrived at this hour.
