How did it begin and when. At first I was alone wandering down the street looking for something. Then came the drums the shouts the horses the men. It was a big parade and everyone marching was shouting and the crowd was the one man and the one man the crowd. They held torches and chanted, and I wanted to join them. Then I saw the mark on the sign they carried aloft, the mark written on their hands and arms, and it was the mark of Hitler. They were chanting, “Death to the Jews and Niggers,” and suddenly I was the Nazi and the Jew. I saw the Jews who sat in rows with bent shaved heads, and I was the one who pointed the finger and sent each one to death. I am the Jew. I am the Nazi and the Jew. I am me. I am you who point the finger at the other. I am the other, and when I die you die and when I fall you fall, and when I rise you rise and none of us can rise when one of us falls. This is the only truth known in heaven and earth that is never forgotten and follows us from lifetime to lifetime and sticks to our skin though skin is stripped off. Although the terrorists come and drag you from your house and hack off your breasts and throw you into the bonfire screaming, “No one left alive” and leave the children of men in smoldering ashes, there is one who will remember.
I am the victim and the accuser. I am the Nazi and the Jew .I am you. I stand as the one accused not he who walks naked straight to the gas chamber. I am the Nazi pointing the gun and the child who falls. I am the Jewish girl with blond hair being marched to Auscwitch because her mother is a Jew. I am the label and the one who speaks labels. I stand accused. I am the Nazi and the Jew who need opposites to play their roles lifetime after lifetime. Today I can no longer turn my head aside and walk away for the Lord has forced me to rise out of my bed and walk into the darkness down this path with you and you and you and you and beg that we hear HIM so that we no longer walk and live and breathe in sin. Do onto others as you could have them do onto you , and this is true since I am me and I am you and we are one who walks and cheats and lies and breathes and breaks and births on the third planet from the sun .
Notice how we date our lives before and after Christ and how we continue to turn our heads and walk past the one who sits quietly in lotus position with folded hands or climbs the mount and brings back the law on tablets of stone. Still we continue to worship the golden calf. Idols are deceptive the devil we burn is the other we cast out because his skin race color is different. In the name of religion we kill. It is the third planet from the sun where men are mad, go mad for money and killers are given coins of gold and although we buy everything in sight, we walk in darkness not light. Last night you did not see me but remembered women sitting behind shades under light bulbs in the red light district of the Netherlands where men walk the cobbled streets and select a prostitute whose costume they like for a night’s entertainment.
This is the third planet from the sun where young girls in Thailand die of Aids, sold by parents to sleep with men, where some of us speak and have no price, where Daniel Pearl had a knife held to his throat and was asked by a terrorist, “Who are you?” His last words were, “My father was a Jew. My mother was a Jew and I am a Jew.” With the last word, the knife sliced off his head and it fell to the ground to be picked up by a man whose face was covered by a black mask. The terrorist held the head high up like a trophy cup. This was recorded on a video distributed worldwide.
I am a writer who walks in ashes. I am the young boy who does not know that in ten years the seas will have risen over the coastlines of the earth and cities build of stone will lie under the sea like Atlantis. You are drowning in illusions. Open your eyes and see. You are not who you think you are. The body is only a shell that will fade as all things do. There is no crusade worth the time left to all of us so close your eyes and find the burning flame within. How precious each breath and the infinitesimal space between each breath. Your mind spins like a monkey easily distracted. Your visions come in dreams. Open your eyes and see that nothing stays the same. The dolphins are not the only ones whose bodies will be cast upon the beaches.
