Great Atrocities Demand Remembrance and Hope

From Catholic Sistas:

The response to great atrocities, whether the Holocaust during World War II, the Rwandan massacres, or our own American Abortion Holocaust must be to remember. As Wiesel said, “We must remember the suffering…[and] struggle to invent a thousand and one reasons to hope.” The stories, especially those of hope,  not only respect the victims of the past, they give courage to new generations fighting to overcome the darkness of the present.

Stolen name replaced by number,
Savaged soul and broken heart.
Hell, a people to encumber.

Blind eyes outside in darkness.
Dead souls dismissed the human face.
Stolen name replaced by number

Rising from the ashes,
Pledging nevermore.
Hell, a people to encumber

Yad VaShem, the vault of memory,
Yad VaShem, the ground of tears
Stolen name replaced by number

Shoah: families, children.
Here named, remembered, mourned
Hell, a people to encumber

Faces pictured in the silence.
Tears cried forevermore.
Stolen name replaced by number
Hell, a people to encumber

Copyright 2011 Joann Nelander

(experimental Villanelle)

Rose before dawn,
Nestled life in bud.
Sun of mother-love withdrawn.
Rose before dawn
Life, so sweet, soon gone.
Red flower, the color of blood.
Rose before dawn
Nestled life in bud.

Copyright 2011 Joann Nelander

Haunting Silence

Time to name the monster
Who stirs at night.
Who lives within
To hide our sin.

Time to make room,
In memory's caverns,
Rather than banish,
What simply won't vanish.

You had a choice once,
That gave birth to phantoms,
Making you live your choice,
Silencing not its voice.

The monster lives and grows,
Curled and caved in your heart.
When the Light goes out,
It walks about.

Its countenance a disfigurement,
Frightful yet your own.
Its dwelling through the years,
Fraught with reticence and tears.

Has it no right?
No place of rest?
When the day is done,
No place in the sun.

Most monsters are but part
Of our fallen selves,
Standing in the way
Of each new day.

The way out
Is also within.
Give the chimera a name.
Acknowledge its claim.

Give the silence life,
Life for the living,
For what you kill,
Haunts you still.

Time to embrace,
And wrap the past in Mercy.
Give it a womb,
Instead of a tomb.

©2012 Joann Nelander
All rights reserved