Today, we feature an excerpt from Ayala Zarfjian’s poignant and deeply moving new poetry collection, A Corner in the World: Holocaust Poems for My Father. Ayala’s words powerfully resound as a beautiful tribute to her ancestors that died as a result of the holocaust, to those that survived, and to all the silenced voices of the persecuted around the world today. Woven into her vivid, yet gentle treatment of the terrors of the holocaust and ancestral trauma, is also a powerful warning that we not let such a horrific past repeat itself, that our species not lose its heart and soul. The following, is a poem she wrote in memory of her aunt, Sally Eckhaus:
Sally
I no longer remember the sound of her laughter.
I no longer remember the scent of her perfume.
Did she bake challah for the Sabbath?
Did her hands form a perfect braid?
The wind whispered her name.
Her hair flowed when she walked.
Darkness, illuminated by her smile.
She embraced her husband for the last time.
The memories of their newlywed days sustained her.
Their faces beamed when they found each other in a crowd.
Their hearts beat as one.
Their unconscious flowing tenderness was seamless.
A dance of life, filled with beauty and kindness.
Sally mourned my beloved uncle’s death.
Devastated and alone she returned
to reclaim their home.
The villagers that pillaged their possessions
took her life.
Her body was dismembered.
I might imagine all the places where
the parts were thrown.
Patches of beautiful lilies grew there.
(This poem originally appeared in A Corner in the World:
Holocaust Poems for My Father. To acquire a copy of your own, click here)
*For submission guidelines, click here.*
Wow so very sad
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