January 27, Yom Ha Shoah (1) (2)

 

Let Mother Earth reclaim these bones and quench these glowing coals.

And let the sky disperse this smoke: six million wandering souls.

Their spirits are still wandering, no final resting place,

Their ashes scattered on the wind, the smoke their only trace.

 

Smoke and coals, wandering souls, when can they go home?

Must their names end in flames, and souls forever roam?

 

Now God on high is looking down, His head sunk in His hands,

Watching smoke as it pours forth today, from many lands.

Ask Argentina where did her desaparacidos go? (3)

Could they have joined the clouds of smoke of eighty years ago?

Or go and ask Cambodia where one in three have gone, (4)

Or dismiss bombing in Ukraine with no more than a yawn.

 

Smoke and coals, wandering souls, when can they go home?

Must their names end in flames and souls forever roam?

 

What happened then still happens now and we should weep with shame,

To see God’s image turned to smoke, and often in His name.

Let Yom Ha Shoah teach us all, it’s time for hate to die.

All men are brothers to respect and still Am Israel Chai! (5)

 

Smoke and coals, wandering souls, when can they go home?

When all war is no more and we create Shalom. (6)

 

(1) “Yom haShoah,” Holocaust Remembrance Day, 2023

(2)May be heard on “Breakin’ the Rules,” CD by the Galapagos Mountain Boys,

2009.

(3) Argentina’s “Dirty War,” from 1974-83, when an estimated 30,000 died or just disappeared.

(4) Pol Pot’s “Killing Fields,” in Cambodia, 1975-79

(5) “Am Israel chai,” The people of Israel live.

(6) “Shalom,” Peace.