Knowing

O you who know
did you know that hunger makes the eyes sparkle that thirst dims
them
O you who know
did you know that you can see your mother dead
and not shed a tear
O you who know
did you know that in the morning you wish for death
and in the evening you fear it
O you who know
did you know that a day is longer than a year
a minute longer than a lifetime
O you who know
did you know that legs are more vulnerable than eyes
nerves harder than bones
the heart firmer than steel
Did you know that the stones of the road do not weep
that there is one word only for dread
one for anguish
Did you know that suffering is limitless
that horror cannot be circumscribed
Did you know this
You who know.

I should be writing my paper right know, but I can't. Today in class we started discussing Auschwitz and After, a memoir by Holocaust survivor Charlotte Delbo. She was a political prisoner, not a Jew, but her memoir is no less poignant. Her voice haunts me. I can't get it out of my head. After Night, Survival in Auschwitz, and Fatelessness, I didn't think that anything would get me this badly. But it does.

Read that poem up there aloud.
Slowly. With feeling. Explore every pause.
What's in them?
Nothing. An all-encompassing, abject nothing.

Marie by Charlotte Delbo

Her father, her mother, her brothers and sisters were all gassed on
arrival.
Her parents were too old, the children too young.
She says: "She was beautiful, my little sister.
You can't imagine how beautiful she was.
They mustn't have looked at her.
If they had, they would never have killed her.
They couldn't have."