Forgotten Pain Is Underrated Poem by gershon hepner

Pain, the only force that is created
without effort and with very little cost,
is, once forgotten, underrated,
bitter herbs of Passover on Pentecost.

Michael R. Marrus reviews “Mirrors of Destruction: War Genocide and Modern Identity” (Oxford University Press) by Omer Bartov, who teaches at Brown. He quotes Primo Levi who wrote that ''man, the human species––we, in short––had the potential to construct an infinite enormity of pain and that pain is the only force created from nothing, without cost and without effort. It is enough not to see, not to listen, not to act.''


9/13/00