HE BURNT
a swastika on her grass
He was drunk he said he didn't know
that her family died in the nazi Holocaust
burning through the sod Cries of burning bodies
children whose hollow eyes are caught briefly
in old newspaper photographs being loaded to die
Music burnt Philosophy burnt Memory burnt
burning through us the stench of kerosine
Could we continue
to live here
digging up the black remains near rosebushes
Always the grass will have a faint trace
unless it is entirely dug up & replanted
Every morning as her children go to school
she glances there with a burning shudder
putting sandwiches in bags
She remembers her mother's memories
of Rosa Sara Claire Hannah Nora Ruth
Judith
She remembers their flight to south america
where the nazis followed
when it seemed they had lost
Their symbol covering jackets of teenagers on street corners
my eyes burn I know the nazis won
as the slaveowners have
We see evidence of their victories
in every morning's paper burning with a stench
that fills our lives
Not so long ago some other boys burnt a cross
on the grass of a Black family
less than thirty miles from the grass of my home
I have dead I carry on my own
I'm sorry he said I didn't know what I was doing
Oh but
he did
---Chrystos
(Menominee)
From: "Indians Are Us?: Culture and Genocide in Native North
America" by Ward Churchill, Common Courage Press, Monroe,
Main 1994 p. 10
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