Response to Birdsong, from the Terezin Concentration Camp

If the tears obscure your way,

try to open up your heart to beauty. 

Weave a wreath of memories.

The blind man listening in the woods 

sees as much as the sighted man, 

knows what the birds know

and where (in the world) he stands.

He cannot see the yellow wood sorrel 

but he can sense the timbre and tremolo 

and knows things about the birds

you haven’t dared to learn.

The birds he hears are free

but we make prisoners of humans.

Children kept in cages.

Here or there, what does it matter? 

Separated from their parents. 

Then or now, what does it matter?

Across the centuries

the birds observe

the anguish and the misery 

and still, the birds sing.

Oblivious to their song, in childhood

I wove a crown of vines in dappled shade

and wore it like a badge o’er my brain

in shadows like the camouflage my cousin wore

        when he was shot at

when his innocence was slaughtered 

along with his friends.

In my grandfather’s time,

he lied for the privilege to go to war. 

In my father’s time,

he had to be drafted.

In my cousin’s time,

the military was his last good option. 

In my children’s time,

can war cease?

In their children’s time,

which birds will remain

to sing?

— Erin Taylor