Our Tears
Tonite on tee-vee
the old man’s tears
slowly dripped
across his weathered cheeks.
.
Eyes seeing for the first time
his grandfather’s face,
clipped still to the records
of the holocaust.
.
Unburied from his 60 years’ tomb
fresh and terrifyingly still
from miles of cabinets and locks
tended by the cure-ator.
.
Her work, impersonal,
did stop for a brief encounter
with human tragedy.
My heart goes out to him.
.
My heart aches for those lying chained,
crowded into every space
who left no records, no photos.
.
My tears slowly drip
across my weathered cheeks,
weeping for centuries
of lost history.
.
What difference could it make
to know and trace our people.