A Solitary Candle in the Tracks

I went to Poland and the Ukraine during my year in Israel. It was a harrowing but worthwhile experience. On Yom HaShoah, I thought it appropriate to share a brief excerpt of my thoughts from the trip and a poem I wrote while on the trip. I hope you find them meaningful.

Candle in the Tracks
train tracks
lead
to cold, black death
train tracks
lead
to suffering and torture
and cruelty and loss
in Auschwitz,
they are train tracks
of the dead
they were here
now they are gone
and all that is left
of them,
for them
is one, solitary candle
in the tracks

"In the actual ovens where the Nazis so brutally burned the bodies of their victims, we lit yharzeit candles in honor of the victims and in their memory. We lit candles to say we have not forgotten and we never will forget. We lit candles to say 'never again.' And as we stood in the crematoria of the death camp Majdanek, we sang and we cried ... So, my yahrzeit candle burns defiantly in the Nazi ovens to say 'I am here' and our singing declared that we will stay."