To Bear Witness

To Bear Witness To bear witness … and awaken the world … he’ll rise: Helpless to halt routine horrors he’s seeing, A scared, adolescent boy of slender size, Nabbed and dehumanized solely for “being”, Keeps records of the cruelty his captors devise. Yesterday once stayed his tenacious tenant of time, Occupying today in recurrent roles of reprise, Until death voided its lease, evicting crisis from crime. Exiled to sight and sound, languages always languish: Lone words, limited mediums too dull and shallow, Impaired all the expressions of their author’s anguish, Except to press, “What shall humanity hold hallow?” Woven together, his words threaded truths for which he fought, Iterating a haunting testimony of torment. Emancipated prose, sprung from his mind’s prison distraught, Sew our human bond on basted seams of past and present: Empathy must be a measure of our moral fitness Lest we lose lessons taught by he who lived … to bear witness! E. V. Wyler