Rene Tyk(25th March 1936 Paris - 21st August 1942 Auschwitz).
If only your life could have been
frozen at the moment that photograph
was taken. You leaning a little backwards,
gazing towards the photographer
a bit apprehensively, guardedly,
your little hands resting on
your thighs, almost crossed.
It would have spared you from
the train carriage, the fear you read
from eyes of the adults, the railway
platform where they chose death
for you. You were just too small;
a decade and they might have
made you a slave labourer,
and you might be telling your story,
in great old age, remembering
a family you lost.
But you were just too small.
You had to suffer the concrete
walls, the door locked and sealed
behind you, the gas and the last
moments when murdered people
struggled to live. Perhaps a mother
held you, so that you weren't
trampled by your fellow dying.
Perhaps... We can continue,
but you didn't.
They made you a dead rag-doll,
broken flesh and unseeing eyes,
those little hands limp, those
apprehensive, guarded little eyes
open only towards death,
in terror and fear.
If only your life could have been
frozen when the photograph was taken,
and you would have been, these
eighty-one years, preserved
beyond the immense cruelty
of this stained world
we humans made.
25.03.2023
#Poem #Poems #Poetry #Verse
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