In the darkness of Dachau
(or it may have been another),
her thin dirty fingers
retrieve a crumb of chewed bread,
shaping it somehow into a petal
no bigger than hope.
Petal by petal
from cramping self-denial
grows rose after rose,
bonsai garden.
Blued with ink,
glued to oval cardboard,
safety pin lashed to its back,
it becomes a brooch.
Kneel in awe:
holocaust jewelery.
I saw it once,
treasured in my mother's palm,
a holy gift.
Alas, it was not
among her things
when she went Home
and the artist's name
went with her.
(or it may have been another),
her thin dirty fingers
retrieve a crumb of chewed bread,
shaping it somehow into a petal
no bigger than hope.
Petal by petal
from cramping self-denial
grows rose after rose,
bonsai garden.
Blued with ink,
glued to oval cardboard,
safety pin lashed to its back,
it becomes a brooch.
Kneel in awe:
holocaust jewelery.
I saw it once,
treasured in my mother's palm,
a holy gift.
Alas, it was not
among her things
when she went Home
and the artist's name
went with her.
Yet thus
from the rubble and mud
of Tohoku-Kanto and Fukushima
history will see
just such brilliant
humbling
flashes of life,
courage,
and beauty.
from the rubble and mud
of Tohoku-Kanto and Fukushima
history will see
just such brilliant
humbling
flashes of life,
courage,
and beauty.
Jessica Reynolds Shaver Renshaw
Inspired by "The News, March, 2011," on To Japan, and Our Children with Love by L.L. Barkat, perhaps the first poem to come out of the Japanese tragedy.
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