A Walk On The Face Of Gravestones Poem by Sheena Blackhall

Children walk to school
On the face of gravestones in Europe
The letters they walk on are Jewish
A hard lesson, fading with each new tread

Where are they now, the families who cherished the stones
Brother, sister, parents, grandparents old in wisdom?

Yesterday's smoke, the stuff of empty hangers
Their dishes stolen by strangers.
Their shoes ran off with soldiers and their wives

Their mirrors are black as pitch.
Their Tree of Life is shorn

These paving stones of gravestones-
Little morsels…crumbs that led
To the busy, wicked ovens

The rain runs into the Hebrew script
Like tears on the face of a statue