! The Last Shower Poem by Michael Shepherd

The radio, first chattering companion of the day,
timed its cold shower of the mind with lethal precision
reminding as I stepped into the warmth of water
of those who stepped into the ‘shower’
and never stepped out
those many past numbering
but each one a one

and a gentle Scots Quaker voice
conducting this Holocaust Day memorial
to the indescribable
spoke the phrase
‘the dignity of difference’
offering the heart some way to walk
the path of grief with human hope

the dignity of difference –
an empty form of words
like poetry,
like grief,
poised between nothing and everything
waiting to be filled
with tears and joy
with love and sorrow
with memory and hope
with prayer and promise
with mercy and resolve
with humility and lawfulness
with life and the memory of death
with the memory of death, and life