Sitting on the edge of your rough,
Dirty ball cap, do you know what
The teardrop collected on
Your brim has endured?

I am the dark billowy smoke
That loomed, menacingly, over Auschwitz.
I watched as each and every person
Became acquainted with the
Sharp presence of death.

        
I watched as those who were
Dying, a death like freezing,
Longed to reach out with hands like winter branches,

But did not have the strength to touch just the

Friendly liking of Death's fingertip.

Fathers and mothers and children,
Crying like a howls in wind.
Families ripped from each other's
Sorrowful last goodbyes.

I watched them become part of me,
As their lifeless bodies
Were burned like roaring bonfires,
And willowy, wispy souls were caught in
The upward current of the smoke.

I heard as prey begged predator for life,
As the reeking smell of power destroyed men,
And as circumstance devoured the will to live.
Many threw out hope,

As if it were a mangy dog.

I smelled the stinging, musty scent
Of the bodies, of the living and the dead.
Bodies wasting, rotting, giving away
On the many who would not
Join that popping mass of fire just yet.

l saw the frightened masses
March into chambers,
Where they would go to
A timeless forever sleep.

I built and accumulated
As the dying's ear-piercing screams
Rebounded off the chamber's
Harsh confinements,
Like an animal's last gripping fight for survival.

I grew and grew,
As their remnants in smoke
Hurtled into my retched,
Inhumane existence.

As their souls, their stories,
Their collected untold memories,
Blended with my wicked smog,
Filled with names that will be ultimately forgotten.

I am the lost.
I am the unlucky ones
Who were conquered as Death
Swam through their lungs.

As you watch the pitter patter
Of the rain bounce off ongoing traffic,
Will you remember why
The clouds still cry?

Will you think of those wispy souls,
Who touched the high parts of the heavens
And danced in the silky mist of God's white blanket?
Do you know what worlds are pouring down on you?

Would you comprehend that as these people
Slept on the needed comfort of pure, light clouds,
They became the raindrops that nourish your land?
That you have bathed in the lives of nameless souls?

Please remember the lives,
The lost feelings,
The words that were never spoken,
Those millions of possibilities
That now belong to the dead.

Please, will you wonder who sits upon
The dirty, worn edge of that drenched ballcap?
Will you hear the pitter patter of the rain
And mistake it for a million heartbeats?

Remember those who are
The tears of those heavy, burdened clouds.
Remember the stories of those
Who have washed over us.