This poem is "Choir of Memory," and first inspiration of it
was on a train at night, and you'll
recall that when you're traveling through a station,
you can see out.
But when you move into the dark, you only
see your face, so going through multiple stations that
appear and disappear.
And it's the train from Antwerp to Amsterdam.
And I was moved by old, very old man who I thought was Jewish.
Tailored suit with the burden of memories.
And it was on this same route, maybe
when I wrote this poem, maybe 35 years earlier,
that Jews were transported on this same railroad
that I'm now taking as a tourist.
Grave faces of the late window gods appease my shadow
and break the fierce silence overnight
by memory of cruel cities.
Perfect names, Aryan chauffeurs at the right mile
posts in the dark firestorms.
He raced entire families outrun on the rails.
Old storiers cloaked the shame, creation turns and rage
against misery.
Black mercy, foot men in the lounge, mockery by chance
or godsend on the night train, Antwerp to Amsterdam.
Ceremony and memory tormented by the station's brake of light.
My shouts, slight tributes, sentiments of resistance
almost lost on the cloudy cold coasts of the Second World War.
Blue portraits, dark eyes, weary children
forsaken by the seasons in their winter coats,
silent nations rushed past the meadows, festivals, Mitzvah,
secular unions.
Sole relatives reflected night after night on the dirty train
windows, vanishing in the light at the stations.
Family traces beholden and imagined on the glass
by a jeweler in a mighty choir of memory,
forever in motion on the train to Amsterdam.