The Abandoned
by Evelyn Ripp
$14.00, Cover: paperback, ISBN: 0-9674074-7-8, ©2004

Why I Write

I've been silent so long,
Now I'm obsessed.
Language is wanting,
But I must struggle
To put it in words.

I write to justify my survival
Summoned by the millions who died.
I write to testify,
To take the world, and God, to task
For their silence.
I write to search for answers,
For release and for repair,
Lest my grief spill over.


I See Germans Shooting

I see Germans shooting
And I see the slain
A bloody stampede
Children knocked down
T r a m p l e d
My baby cousins
Cheva, Friedka, Niusia and Dovik
A human tidal wave
Streaming toward the ghetto gate
Tearing it off its hinges
Spilling out over it
Into the open market square
Into SS machine gun fire
My mother and older sister are there
Then I don't see them any more

Father never let go
Of my little sister's hand
I ran by myself
Somehow
We took the same path
We met


Visitations

Memories come pouring forth
At night,
As if only darkness befits that
Horrid source,
Which has irrevocably dimmed my life.
Waiting for sleep in my bed,
Nightclothes drenched in cold sweat,
They
Come gliding through the wall
And hover overhead,
Ghosts
Of my murdered family.
R e l e n t l e s s
Voices In the quiet of the room
Compel me to pay heed to them.

Summoned thus,
My fragile psyche's undermined,
Even as I long for dawn
And light.