REMEMBRANCE

I. The Vietnam Memorial

I saw thousands upon thousands of names
etched on an endless black marble wall,
real people from real places with real stories,
with real forebears reaching back to time’s beginning,
with real grieving ones left behind.
Is there such a wall in North Vietnam?

II. A Polish Memorial

I saw a railroad cart on a section of track
in a park-like median strip between two Warsaw city streets.
It was overfilled with crosses,sculpted corpse-like forms,
hands reaching out, hopelessly reaching out.
Here I saw no people names.

Here, on each of endless railroad ties,
I saw inscribed the name of a different town
from which nameless real families,
real children, real men, real women,
were removed to work camps in Siberia,
likely in the black of night without forewarning,
for reasons having nothing to do with themselves,
except that they did not belong.

On the tie inscribed “Pinsk”
someone has placed a single red rose.

III. Auschwitz

I saw precise rows of neat brick buildings.
I might have thought it a college campus
except for the name on the gate, except for bins
brimming with old suitcases, bins of shoes,
bins of eyeglasses, bins of human hair.
Other than memories,
all that’s left of the countless names
gassed and burned,
determined to be erased and forgotten because
they seemed different, and so,
did not belong.

The scene that day was
sunny, warm, peaceful …,
quiet except for the crunching
of my shoes on connecting gravel walkways,
until I walked into a dark cold echoing
brick building, hard concrete under foot,
and a massive door clanked shut behind me.

Even as the door was closing,
sunbeams through heavily barred windows
disappeared.
The sky outside turned black,
as though an evil spirit was drawing dark shades.
A violent wind rattled as loudly as it could
the iron bars on windows, as though shaken by
nameless ones desperate for attention.
The wind shakes me once more as I write.

We stayed by the door, too intimidated
to look into formidable shadowy interior rooms
that years ago witnessed unspeakable barbarity.
Marble size hailstones collected ankle deep
in frigid rainwater along the walkways.
How our imaginations were awakened
by the icy terror-frought storm
to past human suffering!

As suddenly as it began the storm was over,
a momentary excursion into another reality,
a reality for people that did not belong,
with no sign anything had happened
other than the shining of the summer sun now
on a new green carpet
of wet wind-blown leaves
amid precise rows of neat brick buildings.

IV. The Wall

In the New World
a “Trail of Tears” is remembered,
a trail followed by Indian tribes,
real people, that did not belong.

Indians were wanted out-of-the-way, so
were removed forcibly, by federal law,
from their lands east of the Mississippi, to be
forcibly re-settled in Indian Territory, Oklahoma.

Two thus removed from northwest Alabama,
from their home by the Singing River,
were People of the Sun,
young sisters of the Yuchi Tribe
with strange different-sounding names,
Whana-le and Te-lah-nay,
I learned of them from a man
who loves to tell stories, a man named Tom,
building a stone wall
his last twenty-seven years (and counting),
dedicated to Te-lah-nay’s journey,
and to all Native American women,
his way, he says, of honoring his ancestors,
for Te-lah-nay is his great great grandmother.

Gentle and inviting as it winds through the woods,
the wall varies in height and breadth
to tell the story of the stages of her journey,
for she was taken the long way west
to break free and, alone now,
for four arduous wilderness years,
to follow the Sun
the long way home again.

Te-lah-nay along the way
survived every imaginable hazard:
wild animals, wild temperatures, wild people,
civilized soldiers
charged with returning her to Indian Territory.
Te-lah-nay died young I expect because
of the toll of the journey on her.

Trained early by her own grandmother
Te-lah-nay became a youthful healer of legend.
She helped others as she made her way,
was helped turn when in greatest need
by unforeseeable kindnesses
from whites and Indians alike.

Each of Tom’s stones,
placed stone by stone
in the wall by loving hand,
each stone represents
one step in her journey.

I easily absorbed an hour
wandering step by step all of the wall,
and yearned for two or three or four
to linger more on stones for sitting
in a meditation circle the wall defined,
in a wedding circle at another spot,
available to anyone, Tom said,
seven couples now so joined,
and to attune to the shapes, textures
and colors of individual stones
from northwest Alabama,
from each of the United States,
even from countries abroad.

A section of wall beckoned for my attention,
built of stones with strange hollow cavities,
suggestive of eyesockets and noses
in skulls of Indians
returned to the Earth Mother.
Were they now the guardians
of the wall?

Why the journey home? Why the wall?
Called Woman of the Dancing Eyes,
Te-lah-nay, by Tom’s account,
was chosen that Yuchi stories and healing not fade.
In Oklahoma, no longer could she hear
the songs of the Woman in the River,
songs she would risk all,
once again to hear.

Te-lah-nay so I see was chosen
for a yet graeater purpose,
chosen to marry a white man,
bring to life a half-breed son,
a grandson and great grandson,
who in his dedication to building a wall,
in his very body and spirit,
and in the wall itself,
bridges, heals the difference
between white man and Indian.

Both now belong.

V. The Stones

My memories of memorials
fade over the years,
and in my habitual daily hum drum
I lose touch with Spirit within me
and within all
that powers the will to create these memorials.
How easy, how tempting instead
to see only this “Vale of Tears”,
to fix on the evening’s
broadcasted horrors,
the pain of Vietnam,
Russian abuse of the Poles,
Hitler’s massacre of the Jews,
our abuse of the planet,
even, I must admit,
my hurting you
and you hurting me.

How easy, how tempting, how convenient
to yield to guilt and anger and fear and despair.
How easy to give up hope, immobilized,
like a deer caught in headlights.

The Vietnam Memorial Wall,
Auschwitz today, the Polish Memorial
to Those Deported to Siberia,
attest to the Holy Spirit,
the Spirit by whatever name
within all who build,
all who resonate with such monuments.

I write now in remembrance,
to revisit memories clouded by time and by ego,
to see if I can put myself once again in touch
with my own resonance.

Atheist, agnostic, skeptic, cynic, believer,
however resistant ego's armor,
come with me, back to the wall
remembering Te-lah-nay’s journey.
Ponder with me
the message of the stones.

Links:

The Story Behind the Wall
Tom Hendrix images

Vietnam Memorial 1
Vietnam Memorial 2
Vietnam Memorial 3

Auschwitz 1
Auschwitz 2
Auschwitz 3

Polish Memorial