dis asters

sometimes I wonder why I keep things

things of which I know little
      or fear to know more

like a small crumble of red brick
      I took from a pile of rubble

I know I should have
      left it where it lay

but it already was broken
      and there were so many

just as lives once filled
      long rows of barracks

I saw the museum with pictures
      and all the shoes

and signs in languages
      I didn't understand

why I chose that broken brick
      near children's barrack #23

I do not know

not often, I hold that remnant
      and wonder why I keep it

why do I keep the memory of my escape
      from those memorial grounds that day

to eat a sandwich from my day pack
      seated on a gray boulder on the sunny hillside

overlooking a far-distant river and
      watching a storm pass through the valley

why did I feel so unsafe when I became aware
      my discarded granite boulder

was just one of ten giant jumbled stone block
      letters that once spelled Buchenwald

why do I remember myriads of blue asters
      peering through tangles of rusty barbed wire

behind me
      by the guardhouse watchtower

somehow feeling safe outside the compound fences
      knowing I could go home . . . and would

sometimes I wonder why I
      keep things

that never should have been


                      The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy
                              is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quiet,
                              alone with the heavens, nature, and God.
                              Because only then does one feel that all is as it should be.
                                                                                                                      -Anne Frank
                                                                                                                       1929-1945