John R. Guthrie
Unknown Jewish Child: The Holocaust Museum
Among the plaques for the named dead
some proclaim;
“Unknown Jewish Child.”
Their babbling mute;
No playing dolls,
No castles of blocks
Never to consume a perfect pear,
Or revel in the mischiefs
that are childhood’s due.
In this house of silence,
the small afflictions of life
are lost to meaning.
Wilshire Boulevard;
ads for sushi, tires, burgers.
Busy pigeons forage on the walk
the bright sun baking down,
laughing couple pass by hand-in-hand.
But even here ash-laden smoke
from tall chimneys clouds the sky;
the waters of the earth itself
become rivers of blood,
of tears, and
in their deaths, we die.
Unknown, unknowable,
yet through the mists are seen
the distant faces of those
now shrouded in the starless night
of dreamless sleep,
names not lost to the book
of shame and remembrance
for mammon is their name.
The Prayer
Mixed Media on Cotton Duck Canvas 24"x18"x1"
