Do You Hear Their Cries?

                                             Do You Hear Their Cries?

By Keith Jablon

 

A Darkness hangs over this Land.

 

Do you hear their cries?

 

Even though the sun rises and shines brightly outside my window. 

 

The garbage truck makes its morning troll throughout the neighborhood.

 

And children are grabbing their backpacks and heading to school.

 

Do you hear their cries?

 

People half a sleep with a coffee in one hand, a brief case in the other, wait for their train to arrive.  

 

A woman sits on a city bus heading to work; daydreaming about the tropical vacation she can’t afford to take. 

 

Do you hear their cries?

 

The morning news is demonstrating to their viewers how to make the perfect brisket for that night’s dinner. 

 

And in the evening, under the hanging darkness, tens of thousands of people will fill stadiums all over just to hear the crack of the bat; to cheer the swing and miss, the flash of leather, and the play at the plate. 

 

The day turns into night that turns into day, but don’t they hear?

 

 Don’t they hear their cries?

 

The cry of fear from a mother, being held down by strangers in masks, knowing her 6-year-old will be left at school.

 

Don’t they hear their screams?

 

The scream of a delivery man dropping packages while being tased by strangers in masks in the middle of the street. 

 

Don’t they feel the fear?

 

The fear of a couple being violently separated by strangers in masks, while walking out of court, not knowing if they will see each other again. 

 

Don’t they feel the tears?

 

The tears of a barber being beaten and abused by armed guards in masks at an American funded concentration camp in a foreign land.

 

Their cries haunt me. Do they you?

 

Their screams are a nightmare of an era gone by. 

Of people an ocean away. 

 

Tears of people, more than six million to be exact, 

 

Scapegoated, beaten, rounded up, and murdered.

 

Why?

 

Because they were different.   

 

Were their cries heard by their neighbors?

 

The answer is NO!

 

Were their screams heard by their neighbors?

 

The answer is NO!

 

Were their tears felt by their neighbors?

 

The answer is NO!

 

 

Light will not dissipate the darkness until

 

We all hear the cries of our Latin neighbors!

 

Until we all are horrified by the fears of our Latin neighbors!

 

 

Light will not dissipate the darkness until the tears of our Latin neighbors are dried up forever. 

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