Last Train To Auschwitz

Was it day, was it night? shufflings, packed with arms, legs, heads, torsos handled like cattle on a train car, ready to move along the tracks; the bodies merge - men, women, teenagers, children, babes in arms, blended, mixed in sweat and fear, every sound loud whispering, trembling, internment tremors of a heartbeat pounding; the echoes live, alive and too well know, inaudible, aghast, hate, compelling rage and fear holding every breath, acquiesced acceptance, and submission; the rumors of truth or lie prevail, now immaterial, unimportant, insignificance set in a new reality where time, life, no longer matters, possessions, money, land, all trinkets left behind, buried to confiscations of time; last call. boarding passes for all, believers and deceivers, travelers on the last train to Auschwitz; was it day, was it night, yesterday or today? Surely, you remember, or is it just another lie of denial history fading away, haunted by the sound of the train whistle blowing smoke, hollowed thru clouds, in the emptiness of the gray sky, oblivion of yesterday's images, peer thru the slitted openings and see line after line of crosses and stones, marking the ghosts, waiting, calling out all aboard now, ALL ABOARD. Can we, do we, will we ever learn from the tragedies of our shared histories? Will it be day or will it be night, today or tomorrow? All aboard now? Last Train to Auschwitz for Kai Michael Neumann's Poetry Contest 4/12/21