The Tree of Truth

My garden is a kaleidoscope of color,
A spring-time bouquet.
The seeds had played a joke on me
I didn't see them hiding in the soil,
And, suddenly, there was a vista of Cymbidium Lilies.
My sight was filled with the beautiful flowers
Woven among their tall, stiff, pointed green foliage.
They crowded my consciousness so that
I only saw beauty wherever I looked.
Wherever I turned, I felt joy and laughter,

But it also vanquished the truth of sorrow,
Ugliness and pain. No...there were never swastikas,
Heavy marching boots, starvation, slave labor,
Piles of naked corpses heaped high, corpses
Deprived of even the small dignity of clothes,
Corpses, stacked like cordwood, awaiting
The match. There was never thick, black
Smoke rising from slender, streamlined
Smokestacks. There was never heart-breaking
Medical experiments on children. There were never
Showers of hissing, deadly gas, cascading
Over men, women and children deprived
Of basic respect even in death: There were no words ever
Spoken over them - no flowers on these mass graves.

And the last bitter blow, years past, the fools that chatter,
"Isn't it time you stopped thinking and talking about
The Holocaust?" As if the wounds of the soul
Could be healed with silence, as if even time could
Erase the horror that had been done. As if mankind could
Now go merrily on its way and ignore the whole thing.

Listen, do you hear the bellow and the clatter of the bells?
The knell of huge, hollow, ominous bells tolling
Their message, shattering peace, shredding prayers,
CLONG, BLONG, CLONG,... the Holocaust
Never Happened. The Holocaust Never Happened...

Tears spill down like rain...rain,
Rain falls in my garden. Rain is a tender mother,
Who nourishes plants like hungry, suckling babes,
Gathering them to her loving breast, tenderly feeding and
Comforting them, spilling out her love...

Angels of my garden, in my garden there is a Tree of Truth.
Its branches droop as if weeping. Its trunk is bent, twisted
And punctured with knots, as if a sculptor had gathered
The essence of pain and poured it into its trunk.
After I walk through my garden, full of butterflies
Birds, and flowers, then guide me to the Truth Tree.

The Truth Tree with its emerald leaves passionately
Plucking the drifting breeze. Remind me to pause before it.
So that it will always help me to remember,
That beyond beauty, forever lies truth.