A Man in Dachau

A Man in Dachau.

Above the iron gate, 

in letters of iron,

the motto 

“Work will set you free.”

Inside the iron gates 

slavery, nakedness,

sadism, despair, death,

a rule beyond brutality,

a regime beyond callousness,

darkness thick, impenetrable, absolute.

How could light exist in such darkness?

Yet I read of a man who surrendered 

his pitiful morsels of bread to those 

he thought were suffering more.

"I am no mere plaything of circumstance.

They can take my life.

What they cannot take is my freedom 

to choose my own way." 

“Choice,” I joyously shouted, 

“not circumstance, 

determines what we are 

and who we will be.

Look! Even in Dachau a man 

chose compassion over self.”

A friend said:

"Noble indeed is such a one.

Heroes make these choices.

The exception though is not the rule.

Choice is circumscribed by circumstance

and eliminated for most by horror of place."

Another then spoke:

"Oppression's boot can find the weight

To crush all choice away.

Was that man's compassion an act of choice?

I rather think it a gift of grace."

The man from Dachau then appeared.

"The parade", he said, "is unendingly long

of those who shuffle by-

children starving or abused,

women beaten, mutilated, acid-scarred,

the tortured, guiltless and cruelly oppressed,

the dispossessed, the mind-manacled,

the legions of the sick and poor.

I merely do what I must do.

Those who can, should follow." 

“Such thinking is divine,” 

is the voice I think is mine. 

“That one had the gift of grace.

He still gives the gift of hope.

Grant me then the grace to follow.”

First published in Verse-Virtual